The regional policies analysed at the XVI REI Study Day

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rei XVI regional policiesOn Monday the 27th of April the European Parliament had the pleasure to host the XVI REI Study Day, entitled “da Bruxelles a Pedesina. La Lunga marcia dei fondi regionali europei”. The event was devoted to EU regional policies, with a special focus on the  “transmission chain” of the message from the European legislator to the Italian final user. The Study Day was organised by the DGT Italian department of the European Commission, in cooperation with the Terminology Coordination Unit of the European Parliament.

Rodolfo Maslias, head of the Terminology Coordination Unit, welcomed the participants and speakers and focused on the importance of IATE and its crucial role for multilingualism. «The database», he stated, «is an interinstitutional resource that lives with the contribution and cooperation of translators from EU institutions, that’s why we need to integrate more our activities». He then showed EurTerm, the interinstitutional portal of terminology, and presented the language Wikis that are currently a precious resource for terminology discussion.

Then Italo Rubino, president of the REI coordination Committee and Head of Italian Language Department of the Commission, and Cristiano Maria Gambari, Head of Unit of the Italian language unit of the Commission, officially opened the XVI REI Study Day.

Fausta Corda, DG Regio, took the floor with a presentation about regional policies, their evolution, mechanisms, resources, results and communication strategy. Giampiero Gramaglia, journalist for EurActiv.it, talked about the lack of European culture in the Italian information context, such as, for example, journalists’ skills and references’ checking. Moreover, he stressed the ambiguity of EU regional policies acronyms and the general confusion about institutions’ names. Barbara Altomonte, Department of regional affairs, Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers, presented data and reports about EU resources. She pointed out that among the main contributors to EU, Italy is among the top ones, since it gives to the EU more funds than it receives from Programmes. She then presented her department’s activities, like Open Coesione, and its role in funds management and communication. Daniela Ferrara and Anna Maria Linsalata, Regione Emilia Romagna, talked about the interpretation of EU funds and the necessity to decode a technical language, especially concerning the 2014-2020 program, that may be difficult for citizens especially because it introduced new thematic contexts and beneficiaries.

The afternoon session was opened by the presentation of Cristiano Maria Gambari about the translation problems, and its solutions, of Regulations. He gave the concrete example of 1303/2013 Regulation and its most tricky and complex translation phases. Daniela Vellutino, professor in University of Salerno, talked about the terms of growth and EU Funds. «EU regional funds terminology», she stated, «is negotiated and has a “deadline”: they change when the Programs change», showing the issues of terms’ substitutions, lexical variations, unnecessary translations and acronyms ambiguity. She then stressed the lack of ESI Funds glossaries in Italian Regions’ websites and presented the importance of creating controlled dictionaries of terms connected to IATE and represented by a specific URI, in order to publish them as Linguistic Linked Open Data. Arturo Ricci, Lazio Innova SpA, took the floor on the difficulty of translation of the specific case of financial instruments and terms. The REI Study day was concluded by the intervention of Jeremy Gardner, translator for the Court of auditors, that showed the (funny) linguistic influence of English to Italian, bad use of terminology, creative terms and general problems of translation.

Italo Rubino then officially closed the XVI REI Study Day that, in our opinion, offered food for thought for many further developments and research.