Roughly 1500 freelance interpreters in 24 official languages of the Euro Union are normally involved in language support of the European Commission (EC) plenary in person. The pandemic caused many of them a total loss of income. Some cannot pay expensive rent in Brussels any longer.
Deutsche Welle reports that "The European Commission estimates that there is currently only about 20% of the usual work for interpreters."
EC interpreters, including experts such as Elisabeth Dörrer who has been interpreting into German from six EU languages for VIPs such as Angela Merkel, are calling for solidarity and demand the EU institutions to adopt measures to support the army of freelancers. Dörrer lost 90% of her work.
The EC's spokesperson for budget resources, Balazs Ujvari, said that the commission had paid for existing contracts up to the end of May 2020 to help interpreters over the worst of the crisis. But from June, they have been completely left on their own.
The International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) stepped in to facilitate the negotiations with EU agencies but found the non-negotiable offer from the EC simply humiliating. The EC offered freelancers a one-off sum of €1,300 ($1,463) on a condition that freelancers would have to pay it back eventually by working three days at conferences after the quarantine.
"I have rejected the offer because I find it humiliating," says Dörrer, and many of her colleagues have done the same thing for the same reason. They are calling for a solution of the kind offered by several EU member states, who are paying freelancers monthly allowances.
But there is a sliver of hope. According to EC spokesperson Ujvari, the Commission is working on putting in place the technology to make it possible for interpreters to work remotely at online meetings. If this succeeds, he says, freelancers could be employed more frequently again in the coming months.
Read more on Deutsche Welle.
