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Challenges of Translating EU Terminology

Translating EU terminology and creating adequate equivalents in the languages of the new Member States calls for both creative skills and, more importantly, knowledge of the law. Linguists and lawyers are confronted with difficulties when searching for terms in their respective languages to render the same meaning of an EU term. Avoiding artificial neologisms and long descriptive paraphrases due to the lack of equivalents in the target language represents one of the greatest challenges in the translation process. This paper deals with problems relating to the search for adequate equivalents in Croatian for EU legal terminology. The lack of equivalents for EU terms in Croatian is illustrated by examples from social policy such as Directive 96/71/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 1996 concerning the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services or the ‘Posted Workers’ Directive (Entsenderichtilinie). In simple terms, this Directive sets out the minimum terms and conditions which Member States must ensure are applied to workers posted to their territory from another Member State. The Directive has not yet been transposed into the national legislation ; however, its transposition into Croatian legislation is essential to guarantee the protection of Croatian workers in the near future. In the absence of a standardized translation, the following descriptive equivalents are being used in the Croatian title of the Directive: Direktiva 96/71/EZ …. koja se odnosi na slanje radnika na rad u inozemstvo u okviru pružanja usluga (as in the Croatian text of Directive 2004/18) or Direktiva 96/71/EZ … o raspoređivanju radnika u okviru pružanja usluga, (from the Croatian Law on Foreigners). These lengthy paraphrases are not exactly what George Orwell had in mind when he advised: "never use a long word where a short one will do" (1946 Essay on Politics and the English Language). A multilingual display of the most important terms is provided in English, French, German, Slovene together with proposed Croatian equivalents.

Key terms: legal translation, the search for adequate equivalents, EU terminology, legal certainty

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