EU-Report Accession Bulgaria

Translation of the acquis into the national languages

In March 2002, the Bulgarian Translation and Revision Centre (created in May 2001) moved to better premises, which have adequate equipment. The Centre is an independent body under the responsibility of the Minister of State Administration with its own budget. New staff have been taken on following competitions and a total of 12 are now employed. The Centre carries out linguistic and legal revisions of translations done by 30 external free-lance translators, who were also selected through competitive procedures. Priorities for translation of legislation are set by the European integration directorate in the Council of Ministers, based on needs identified by heads of the working groups on the acquis chapters. 2005 is the target set for translation of all the acquis into Bulgarian.

As reported last year, the basic treaties have been translated. As at September 2002, a total of some 15 000 pages had been translated and revised and a further 11 000 were awaiting revision, according to the dedicated Commission database. The increase since last Regular Report stands at roughly 4 700 pages revised, according to Bulgarian sources, which indicates that work has accelerated considerably since the Centre became operational. Efforts in this area need to be sustained if targets are to be met.

Due attention must also be paid to the training of conference interpreters. In the autumn of 2001, a School of Interpreters was created in the foreign language department of Sofia University to prepare conference interpreters.

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