Quality Translations for Better Implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement

Posted on 23 Jan, 2019 by Franziska Helbig

On 16–17 Jan, 2019, the EU project "Support to the implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement" (Association4U) together with the European Commission Directorate General for Translation and the Government Office for Coordination of European and Euro-Atlantic Integration have held the first specialized conference on Quality Legal Translations for Better Implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement in Kyiv.

Better quality translations mean better implementation of the EU acquis, which means faster integration with less effort. In addition, Ukrainian citizens should have free access to EU legal acts on which Ukrainian legislation was based in the Ukrainian language. The EU understands that Ukraine at this stage of integration has to pay more attention to the issue of the EU acquis translation and is supporting development of government capacities,” Ambassador Hugues Mingarelli, Head of EU Delegation in Ukraine, said at the event opening.

For her part, Olga Stefanishyna, Director General of the Government Office for Coordination of European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, added “As the government institution officially responsible for the EU acquis translation, we are drawing attention to the quality of legal translations as the basis for quality legal approximation, aimed at comprehensive fulfillment of Ukraine’s obligations under the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement.”

Merit-Ene Ilja, Director of the Directorate General for Translation of the European Commission, stressed “The EU law represents the best international practices. Emulating large part of EU acquis saves third states so called 'invention costs', in effect reducing political and economic costs of transition and reform.”

So far, the translation team of the Association4U project together with the Government Office for European & Euro-Atlantic Integration have developed and launched the system and procedure for quality translation of legal acts into Ukrainian: 105 translated documents were approved by the Government Office for Coordination of European and Euro-Atlantic Integration. They developed an English-Ukrainian glossary of field-specific terms from EU acquis, and recruited and trained more than 100 Ukrainian translators to provide quality translations in this respect.

International experts and senior and associate legal translation fellows of the Association4U project shared their experience on the institutional framework for EU legal acts translation, new tools and technologies, recent innovations and trends in translation technologies, as well as principles of EU legal English and terminology and the harmonization of related Ukrainian terminology.

More background information about the project's support to Ukraine’s governmental institutions such as the Government Office for Coordination of European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, the Office of the Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration and the line ministries involved can be retrieved at http://association4u.com.ua
 
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