Commission Report 2002 (Slovakia)

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 Central Translation Unit within the Slovak Institute for Approximation of Law is responsible for the translation of the acquis into the Slovak language. It currently employs 15 persons. A total staff number of 20 is envisaged.

As at September 2002, 30 200 pages of revised text and 16 600 of non-revised text were registered in the dedicated Commission database. According to Slovak sources, approximately 62 000 pages of the Official Journal have so far been translated into Slovak, of which more than 30 000 have been revised. Sustained further efforts are required in this area.

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