Los intérpretes checos en las instituciones europeas a los quince años de la adhesión a la UE

Abstract

In 2019 the Czech Republic celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of its accession to the European Union. During that period Czech has been used regularly as one of the official languages at meetings of EU institutions. It is spoken by delegates and by interpreters working in the booths. But Czech interpreters started preparing for work in European institutions well before accession. The author (trainer and ACI interpreter) focuses on the necessary adaptations to university training of future conference interpreters working with Czech, specifically at the Institute of Translations Studies of the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, in connection with Czech accession to the EU (eurospeak, retour interpreting, relay, remote interpreting). She will trace developments in the linguistic and interpreting context in various kinds of meetings (English as lingua franca), deal in more detail with key moments of the experience of interpreters along with delegates over the last fifteen years (particularly the Czech Presidency in 2009) and will attempt to sketch out the possible future development of EU linguistic policy and the role of interpreters therein.