30 YEARS COMMITTED TO MULTILINGUALISM
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The Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union is a European Union agency. Established in Luxembourg in 1994, its main mission is to provide translation and language services to the other decentralised EU agencies. It occasionally also assists EU institutions and bodies who have their own translation services during peak workloads or for specific projects. It currently has around 200 staff, including officials, temporary agents and contract staff. It has grown steadily since its inception, hand in hand with an increasing number of official EU languages and highly specialised clients. The Centre has gained considerable experience in meeting its clients’ specific needs, be these related to service type, file format, deadline, field of expertise or a wide range of language combinations. Today, the Centre provides a wide range of language services, meeting the diverse needs of its numerous partners. See the full list of our partners The Centre’s second mission is to participate in interinstitutional cooperation at EU level with a view to rationalising working methods and achieving economies of scale. For example, since 2003, the Translation Centre has also developed and managed the interinstitutional terminology database IATE on behalf of its institutional partners. |
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1994
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On 28 November 1994, the Council of the European Union adopts Regulation (EC) No 2965/94 establishing the Translation Centre. |
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1995
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The first Chairman of the Management Board
Edouard Brackeniers
October 1995 – December 1996
An Amending Regulation is adopted in 1995 to extend the client portfolio and to give the Centre a role in interinstitutional cooperation.
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The Centre’s first Director
Francisco De Vicente
October 1995 – January 2005
11 official languages of the EU 20 000 translated pages 7 clients |
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1997
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The second Chairwoman of the Management Board
Colette Flesch
January 1997 – June 1999
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The Centre leaves its offices in Luxembourg’s city centre and moves to the Nouvel Hémicycle in Kirchberg (LU), where most EU institutions are located.
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1998
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200 000 translated pages 12 clients |
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1999
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The third Chairman of the Management Board
Brian McCluskey
July 1999 – June 2002
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2001
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Flosys comes into operation, a cutting-edge IT tool developed in-house that handles the entire translation workflow from the time a client sends a document to the Centre to delivery of the translated version(s).
The Centre launches Nemo to manage the Community trade mark translation process.
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2002
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The fourth Chairman of the Management Board
Michel Vanden Abeele
July 2002 – June 2003
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1 000 000 translated pages |
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2003
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The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) recognises that the Centre is ‘committed to Excellence in Europe’.
The Centre is appointed project initiator and project manager for IATE (InterActive Terminology for Europe), the joint terminology database for all the institutions/bodies of the European Union.
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2004
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The fifth Chairman of the Management Board
Karl-Johan (Juhani) Lönnroth
January 2004 – April 2010
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20 official languages of the EU |
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The ‘Big Bang’ EU enlargement of 2004, which almost doubles the number of EU languages from 11 to 20, marks the start of a new era for the Centre.
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2005
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For its 10th anniversary, the Centre organises the conference ‘Multilingualism at any price’.
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Acting Director
Marie-Anne Fernández Suárez
January 2005 – April 2006
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2006
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The Centre’s second Director
Gailė Dagilienė
May 2006 - October 2013
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2007
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The Centre adds several other official EU languages to its portfolio as Bulgaria and Romania join the EU and Irish becomes an official language of the European Union, albeit with a derogation in place.
The EU interinstitutional terminology database, IATE, is made available to the general public.
Visit by Leonard Orban, the European Commissioner for Multilingualism.
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23 official languages of the EU |
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2010
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The Centre organises a conference entitled ‘The Language of Europe. Translating for the EU’ to commemorate its 15th anniversary.
The Centre replaces Nemo with Tr@Mark workflow to manage the Community trade mark translation process.
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2011
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The Centre launches ECHA-term, an online multilingual terminology database developed for the European Chemicals Agency.
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The sixth Chairman of the Management Board
Rytis Martikonis
February 2011 – February 2022
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2013
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8 000 000 translated pages 24 official languages of the EU, |
Acting Director
Marie-Anne Fernández Suárez
October 2013 – July 2015
The Centre moves to its current premises in the Drosbach building in Luxembourg City and signs its seat agreement with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
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2015
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Acting Director
Benoît Vitale
August 2015 – December 2015
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9 000 000 translated pages 61 clients |
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2016
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The Centre’s third Director
Máire Killoran
January 2016 - December 2018
The Centre launches eCdT, the new customised translation workflow management system, which replaces the legacy system, Flosys.
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2017
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Study on the Translation Centre as the Linguistic Shared Service Provider for the EU Agencies and Bodies. The study confirms the Centre’s raison d’être.
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2018
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65 clients |
Launch of a brand-new version of IATE
Adoption of a strategic approach and biennial Transformation Plan
The Centre agrees with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) on a two-year cooperation programme to develop new linguistic services and optimise core business processes to gain efficiency and enhance the customer experience.
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2019
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12 800 000 translated pages 68 clients |
Acting Director
Benoît Vitale
January 2019 – January 2022
The Centre starts implementing its biennial Transformation Plan
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2020
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The Centre finalises the implementation of its Transformation Plan by launching new services, processes and tools.
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13 400 000 translated pages 69 clients |
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2021
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The Centre launches a whole series of new services: automatic translation; custom machine translation; automatic transcription; paste ‘n’ go translation, light post-editing.
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2022
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The seventh Chairman of the Management Board
Christos Ellinides
March 2022 – to date
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The Centre’s fourth Director
Ildikó Horváth
February 2022 - to date
70 clients |
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2023
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73 clients |
The Centre launches its unique multi-engine machine translation (MEMT) strategy.
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2024
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30 years committed to multilingualism
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76 clients |