More on the issue, from a French perspective:

http://www.euractiv.fr/culture/les-francais-sentent-leur-influe-news-529276?goback=%2Egde_2965501_member_276433491#%21

However, practical arrangements are possible without diminishing its present status, while achieving reasonable economies.

EU documents which will have to be incorporated into Maltese laws should be translated into Maltese by the EU at its expense.

A Maltese MEP should be able to speak in Maltese with a simultaneous interpretation into English (also our official language), on which all other interpretations will follow. Such service will also be at EU expense. These being exceptional occasions, mainly to maintain the status of the language, would produce great savings.

One need not insist on simultaneous interpretation into Maltese. The same would apply for working documents. This would also provide great savings. Maltese MEP worthy of the office should not feel disadvantaged.

Having said this I would never accept that only the Maltese language would be discriminated in such a manner.

I believe that all or nothing is not the correct direction to take. It would be useful to determine at what instances all languages need to be translated, and it would be an error to assume a flat equal level of comprehension and fluency for all. Would standards lower and simplify for the common benefit of all participants or would technically refined registers be maintained, force them to improve their own?

Additionally, and currently, the Germans are not as fluent in English as they may wish us believe, the French are too proud to make the first mistake, Italians may be difficult to understand even if they are speaking their own version of learnt English, and the Maltese in Brussels… well, we’ve had our moments even if they were not of our making… etc.

I am confident that if the time was ripe for it, the notion of efficiency would overtake any ego managed brakes on the issue, even before a motion was brought to the table.

A more efficient balance should be struck, but Maltese as the only semitic language within the EU has its own singular showcase value.

D. Borg’s suggestion below that more investment should be made is interesting and the press should really consult and double-check with the specific new word department at University before printing whatever it feels is a correct new word in Maltese. More haste, less speed would help here in Malta, for starters.

So, bearing in mind that the English language is one of the island’s official languages, on a par with the Maltese Language – the question is simply ‘why’?

Do we really have to sponsor bottom-feeding, legal rejects to translate (very poorly) some obscure directive? As always – follow the money!

Nothing has changed….

The Maltese translation unit is the only one to my knowledge that does not have REAL translators, as in people who actually studied Translation and Interpretation. Meanwhile, their peers are mostly expert translators for their own languages.

Does this mean they are ready to accept that certain languages no longer be used in the European Parliament?

Or that they be no longer official languages of the EU? I suspect no MEP would be in favour of his national language being ousted as he might lose his/her seat.

It would probably make a lot of sense to have only English as the EU official language since it is the language most in use during EU Commission meetings but who is going to risk making such a suggestion?