A report on the EU's annual interpretation budget that will be published in a few days states that 16%, or 26 million Euro, was wasted on staff who are booked for meetings to find they are not needed. According to the author of the report, Finnish MEP Alex Stubb, the greatest offenders are MEPs who demand an interpreter for a committee meeting which they then miss:

"A lot of money is wasted. My report should serve as a wake-up call for MEPs who just request an interpreter as a point of principle and then don't show up. They are a small minority, but the rest of us could be more careful."

Mr Stubb is right to call for better planning of translation and interpretation but I disagree with his assertion that language is unrelated to a nation's identity:

"Language is [about] communication and not identity. But for many MEPs it is a question of identity and culture. Therefore we have to be very sensitive."

The Maltese language is a central pillar of the nation's identity and the official status of the Maltese language within European institutions is a positive development even though the Maltese authorities had originally hesitated about putting forward such a request to the EU in the nineties.

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