Commission Report (2002): Poland

3.2. Translation of the acquis into the national languages

Applicant countries are required to translate the various legal texts constituting the acquis into their national languages by the time of their accession. Primary and secondary legislation alone represents a considerable volume of texts, roughly estimated at 60 000--70 000 pages of the Official Journal. In the framework of the translation of the acquis, the Court of Justice has defined a set of key judgements to be translated as a priority (representing about 15 000 pages). To help the candidate countries in this process, assistance is being provided under the Phare programme. With the help of TAIEX, a dedicated database has been set up to act as a repository of all translated acts and as a tool through which candidate countries forward their translations to the Commission and the Council. The legal revisers of the Commission and the Council vet the submitted texts; they meet regularly and liaise with representatives of the centralised Translation co-Ordination Units in each country.

The work of translating all the acquis communautaire into Polish was launched in 1996, and in July 2000 a Translation Department was created in the office of the Committee for European Integration to rationalise and speed up the translation and verification procedure. The department which oversees the translation exercise, most of which is carried out under tender, currently has 20 members of staff. A database of translations has been in existence since 2001 which facilitates access to translations of the acquis.

As at September 2002, 8 200 pages of revised text and 68 400 of unrevised text were registered in the dedicated Commission database. The timetable set out in Poland's National Programme of Preparations for Membership states that ``a vast majority of the translation is expected to be completed in 2001''., with the verification to be completed 6--7 months before the date of accession. Significant additional efforts will be required in the immediate future, if Poland is to meet this target.

Due attention must also be paid to the training of conference interpreters.

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