On 5 September, Ildikó Horváth met with Leena Ylä-Mononen, the Executive Director of the EEA, at the EEA’s headquarters in Copenhagen. During this visit, the heads of both EU agencies, along with other staff representatives, discussed the many ways in which the Translation Centre could assist the EEA’s linguistic needs.
The EEA’s primary mandate consists of helping the EU Member States to make well-informed decisions on environmental matters. Among its core responsibilities, the EEA actively supports policy development and plays a vital role in the key global processes that will help the EU and its Member States achieve sustainability. It offers analytical expertise, and provides and maintains an efficient reporting infrastructure for national and international data flows. In addition, the EEA relies on the support of a partnership network (Eionet) that assists the EEA with the implementation of its work programme. Together, the EEA and Eionet are implementing the EEA-Eionet Strategy for 2021-2030, giving EU policymakers and the public the best available knowledge that will allow them to reach agreed environmental and sustainability targets.
To ensure clear and effective communication, the EEA places significant emphasis on terminology initiatives such as the General Multilingual Environmental Thesaurus (GEMET). This resource is a useful collection of core environmental terms, which the EEA and Eionet members have undertaken to regularly update in order to provide a common source of relevant terminology. The Translation Centre is proud to be part of this project, providing the multilingual definitions and terms included in the GEMET.
On 13 September, the Translation Centre’s Director, Ildikó Horváth, met ECHA’s Executive Director, Dr Sharon McGuinness, in Helsinki to explore the ways to best support ECHA’s multilingual practice and discuss cooperation in further areas of joint interest.
ECHA plays a vital role in ensuring the safe use of chemicals and is a source of knowledge on the sustainable management of chemicals, for the benefit of citizens and the environment.
This collaborative project between the Translation Centre’s language experts and ECHA’s field specialists has resulted in a meticulously revised collection of essential terms relating to the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals (REACH) and the classification, labelling and packaging of chemicals (CLP). The collection is accessible in IATE, the EU’s online terminology database.
This cooperation between the Translation Centre, ECHA and the EEA not only promotes effective communication in the area of chemical management and the environment, but also contributes to multilingualism by making information readily available to all EU citizens in their own language.
It was a pleasure for the Translation Centre to engage with other EU agencies and to gain a deeper understanding of their missions. These fruitful exchanges serve to address how best to cater for the potential needs of other institutional bodies and to promote the latest developments in the linguistic services offered by the Centre.