On October 30th and 31st, 2014, the Maltese Language Department of the European Commission organised two conferences in Malta. The first conference entitled ‘Ten years of EU membership, ten years of translation in the European Union: past, present and future’, was to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Malta’s accession to the EU and the designation of the Maltese language as one of the EU’s official languages.
The second conference, entitled ‘Establishing a network of experts: learning from existing networks’ was dedicated to establishing a network of experts. It sought to consolidate working relations with national language authorities and also with thematic/terminological experts from the Maltese civil service who were to be involved in the Maltese Interinstitutional Wiki. In this context, the EP’s Terminology Coordination, which was instrumental in setting up the 24 interinstitutional wikis, was also present at these conferences and was invited to speak about its mission statement, EurTerm and the reasons behind the creation of the above mentioned interinstitutional wikis.
Ex-rotating terminologist Ludvic Azzopardi Ferrando spoke about the Terminology Coordination Unit and its work in supporting, facilitating and assisting European Parliament terminologists and translators in their work. He also presented the traineeship programmes, the collaboration with several universities on terminological projects, the numerous resources and glossaries available on their website, the terminology e-training opportunities and also the seminars and training courses organized by the unit. He raised awareness about all these activities amongst members of the civil service, representatives from the National Council for the Maltese Language, other bodies which promote the Maltese language, the relevant faculties of the University of Malta, and students, along with members from the European Institutions.
With regards to the EurTerm portal, he highlighted its importance in enhancing interinstituational cooperation and communication. EurTerm is accessible only to the staff of the European institutions but most of its public resources can be found also at www.termcoord.eu.
When talking about the wikis, he described the work and collaboration which began in 2013 between TermCoord and the various EP language units, and how later this gave terminologists from different institutions the opportunity to develop their regular contact even further, thus avoiding a duplication of efforts while also enhancing communication and augmenting cooperation.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20141027/local/Pride-isn-t-lost-in-translation.541405