gawain

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1315642006

Translator services waste £17m of EU cash
MORE than £17 million of taxpayers' money was spent last year on European Union interpreters who were not needed, according to a damning report released yesterday.

The European Commission, the European Parliament and other EU institutions provide interpretation in 20 languages. Each one-day meeting in the European Parliament involving full interpretation costs more than £80,000.

However, MEPs are accused of ordering costly interpretation facilities and then not bothering to turn up.

The report, by a Finnish MEP, Alexander Stubb, says interpretation is vital in a multilingual EU - but wasting taxpayers' money by ordering unwanted facilities is unacceptable.

Mr Stubb attacked the fact that 16 per cent of the spending - more than £17 million a year - goes on hiring interpretation facilities that are cancelled at the last minute or simply not used.

If only English, French and German are used - common practice in the majority of European Commission meetings - the cost falls to less than £6,500 a day.

Jeffrey Titford, the UK Independence Party MEP, said: "This just highlights the massive costs of the whole EU enterprise. As the EU expands, then so does the bureaucracy."

Only weeks ago, the Irish language became the 21st "working" language in the EU - adding an estimated £600,000 a year to interpretation costs for hiring suitable linguists, although there is only one native Irish speaker among MEPs.