On Opportunity for Someone

When such large sums of money are being spent, there always has to be someone who is happy with the result. It seems that there could be opportunities for interpreters.

It is up to the European Commission's Directorate-General for Interpretation to make sure communication at meetings and conferences is smooth. The problem was that professionally-trained interpreters in many of the candidate countries were few and far between. "You have to take into account that in post-communist countries like Latvia, interpretation was not a profession,"

Now however, it is a profession supported by the gravy train. Have no fear however, the cost of all this is cheap:

The cost of all translation and interpretation in EU institutions amounted to just over US$2.50 per citizen last year. That is about as much as a cup of coffee, the Commission likes to point out.

Doesn’t sound like much does it, until you consider that there are about 350 Million of us. That’s around 900 Million USD for translating meetings, on whether Bananas should be straight or not, from Finnish to Italian. On top of that it’s the cost of what comes out of those meetings that’s the real problem.