Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union

🎉 The Translation Centre celebrates 30 years of multilingual service to the European Union 🎂 Last Friday, we were honoured to welcome here in Luxembourg our interinstitutional partners, clients from the EU agencies, and distinguished guests and speakers, including His Excellency the Deputy Prime Minister of Luxembourg, who delivered the keynote address, and Her Excellency, the Marshal of the Grand Ducal Court, attending on behalf of His Royal Highness the Grand Duke Guillaume. For three decades, the Translation Centre has worked hand-in-hand with EU bodies to make multilingual communication possible - enabling policies, research, and cooperation to reach citizens in all official languages of the Union. At a time when clear, inclusive communication is more essential than ever, multilingualism remains at the heart of European democracy and mutual understanding. We are proud to contribute to that mission every day, together with our partners across the EU institutions. #CdT30Years #EUTranslation #Multilingualism #EuropeanUnion #EUAgencies

💬 Empowering women through language - live from the #WG10Summit in Edinburgh 👩🎓 On Tuesday, the Translation Centre's Director, Ildikó Horváth, delivered a 📣 keynote speech at the WG10 Summit 'Interparliamentary Alliance for the Empowerment of Women in the Economy & Diplomacy' on the power of language in advancing gender equality across the EU and beyond. 🌍 ✨ Held at Heriot-Watt University as part of The Scotland Forum 2025, Ildikó's contribution explored the EU's longstanding commitment to gender equality - from its legislative foundations to more recent regulation and its vital role in promoting inclusive communication strategies. She also spotlighted how the Translation Centre is addressing gender bias in texts - and in AI-based translation tools - by keeping human expertise firmly at the heart of the process. 🤝 The Centre is committed to supporting fair, respectful and inclusive language across all 24 EU official languages. ✊ Because words don't just reflect reality - they shape it. 💖 #InclusiveLanguage #CdT #WomenInLeadership #Multilingualism

🌐 MEMT in 2023! ✨ 2023 marked a major leap into the future for the Centre! 🚀 Thanks to the dedicated work of our language tech experts, we successfully launched our brand new, cutting-edge multi-engine machine translation (MEMT) strategy. Combining multiple powerful machine translation engines from three different providers, including specialist sources trained on client-specific and EU-wide texts, MEMT revolves around a customised AI-driven algorithm that selects the best possible translation for each segment in the CAT tool. The segments are then reviewed and post-edited by our translators. 🧠 But it doesn’t just stop there for our language specialists. As well as being involved in the initial evaluation of the algorithmic output, they also play a key role in ongoing quality feedback loops, helping MEMT to continue learning and evolving. 💡🔁 No ‘hallucinations’ here – just smarter, faster, high-quality language services for our clients. We haven’t rested on our laurels since launching MEMT either. We are committed to a continuous process of innovation. And as we enter our fourth decade, we’re continuing to explore and implement the latest advances in language technology. 🛠️🔍 #30YearsCdT #multilingualism

💬 Exciting new services rolled out in 2021! 🆕 Dare we say that 2021 was one of our most exciting years to date? With the 2018-2020 Transformation Plan already yielding results, our teams were ready to take the next step. Responding to clients’ changing needs – and the rapidly changing face of the language services industry – our clever in-house developers and language technologists set to work creating a fresh range of modern, innovative linguistic services and working methods. 💡 In 2021, the Translation Centre proudly launched its new service offer and implemented new ways of working: automatic translation, custom machine translation and full post-editing, automatic transcription, paste ‘n’ go translation, light post-editing and language consultancy. 🚀 The language consultancy service in particular allows us to really flex with our clients’ needs, with one example being our collaboration with the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA) to create a video tutorial on Clear Writing. ✨ While these services and working methods have been refined over time to keep pace with the latest advances in AI-based systems, they continue to be central to our work. They reflect our commitment to delivering efficient, high-quality solutions that meet the multilingual requirements of our clients across the EU bodies and agencies. 🌍 Our achievements in 2021 were made possible thanks to valuable cooperation with our clients and the dedication, creativity and expertise of our staff. 🤝 Their skills and drive to innovate ensured that we stayed ahead of the curve and continued to add value in a diverse linguistic services landscape. 🎉🗣️ #30YearsCdT #multilingualism

🗣️ Transformation Plan takes shape in 2018! ✨ 2018 saw the adoption of a bold new direction, with the launch of the Centre’s Transformation Plan (TP). 📈 With machine translation shifting into high gear, it was the perfect moment to tap into the power of large language models (LLMs) – unlocking smarter language services and optimising workflows for speed and efficiency. 🔧 The two-year plan kicked off with a series of in-house working groups designed to capture insights and expertise from our skilled and experienced staff. 💡 These discussions were distilled into a set of four strategic focus areas: translation technology, human resources, quality and client orientation, and institutional aspects. 🤖 The TP was successfully completed by the end of 2020, as scheduled. It represented a big leap forward in terms of upgrading our tech capabilities across both language and corporate services, and paved the way for the new tools, services and processes, and rapid progress that would follow in the years to come. 🚀 We’re proud to say that the Transformation Plan positioned us at the forefront of EU language services, enabling us to work more efficiently and respond to client needs with greater ease and agility. 🌍 It was hard work, but worth it in spades! 💪 Stay tuned to discover the new services that emerged from this strategic milestone. 🎉 #30YearsCdT #multilingualism

🗣️ eCdT hits the ground running in 2016! 📅 Staying on track with the countdown to our 30th year anniversary, we now fast-forward to 2016 to mark another milestone – our new in-house workflow system. The culmination of years of strategic planning and innovation, ‘eCdT’ (from our French name, Centre de Traduction) is launched! 🚀 Our translation workflow management system was custom-designed by our talented in-house experts to meet the unique needs of the Translation Centre and its clients. 🔧 Replacing the legacy system, eCdT introduced a more streamlined experience and user-friendly interface for workflow assistants and translators alike. 🎉 The 2016 edition was the original release and laid the foundation for all subsequent updates. Its core design and vision remain central to the system today. Numerous features and functionalities have been added over time – both incrementally and through major new versions – to support the Centre’s expanding portfolio of services and evolving processes. 🖥️ In fact, eCdT is now so advanced it has developed into a fully integrated, end-to-end solution, from initial linguistic service request to final delivery, tailored to meet each client’s specific needs for managing and delivering multilingual content smoothly and efficiently. 🌍 Stay tuned for more interesting snippets as we continue our journey through the history of the Translation Centre, and follow its progress through to its achievements today. ✨📈 #30YearsCdT #multilingualism

💬 Croatia joins the EU – and the Translation Centre grows again! 📈 In 2013, the European Union proudly welcomed Croatia as its newest Member State, bringing the total number of official EU languages to 24. 🌍 With this milestone, Croatia became the newest joiner to the EU – and the Translation Centre once again expanded with a new language team. At this point, we had already translated around 8 million pages and were supporting nearly 60 clients, reinforcing our role as the shared language service provider across the EU bodies. 🔄 This period also marked a key moment for us, as we prepared for a move to larger premises in Luxembourg City. ✨ We warmly welcomed our Croatian colleagues into a confident and evolving organisation, where collaboration, professionalism and a shared commitment to high-quality multilingual communications remain at the heart of what we do. We also embraced early advancements in machine translation, while continuing to improve our use of translation memory tools and further developing our workflow management systems – all in the service of meeting our clients' ever-changing language needs. 💻 Onwards and upwards – together! 🤝

The Translation Centre at the Multilingualism EU Summer School 2025 today! Hitting the ground running this afternoon with our workshop on terminology and IATE at the Multilingualism EU Summer School which is currently underway! The session is being led by our in-house experts, and features live demonstrations, real-life examples and interactive group discussions. Following on from a week of stunning and varied events, we’re proud to be hosting this practical workshop to showcase our expertise in multilingual terminology and IATE, and give students a hands-on insight into how terminology supports multilingual communication across the EU. The EU Summer School is a week-long, in-person training programme for promising master’s students in translation, interpreting and law, selected from universities in the European Masters in Translation (EMT) network. It has been taking place at the EU institutions and bodies in Luxembourg this week. Not only a great addition to your CV, it offers a unique opportunity to discover the work of EU language professionals and experience Luxembourg as a place to live and work. We always enjoy engaging with motivated and talented future professionals, and are pleased to have this opportunity to demonstrate how the Translation Centre plays a key role in supporting multilingualism across the EU. #IATE #CdT #multingualism #EMTnetwork #MultilingualismEUSummerSchool

💬 The Translation Centre was honoured to have a double visit this week from 70 European Parliament trainees, keen to learn more about multilingualism and translation in the EU. 👩🎓👨🎓 As interns at DG TRAD - the European Parliament's translation service - and with the bulk of them studying languages, it was especially useful for them to find out how translation works in an EU agency (as opposed to in the EU institutions), and how we leverage the latest tech and processes to provide our clients, mainly the other decentralised EU agencies, with cutting-edge language services. 🤝 Alongside presentations about the Centre and its workflows, attendees were particularly interested in hearing from our guest speakers, who were in-house translators and language technologists. 🗣️ They peppered them with questions about how machine translation works in the 'real' world, the added value of human expertise in the process, career options and environmental considerations, among other thoughtful queries. 💡 As always, it was a real privilege to have this exchange with those entering or reshaping their role in the workforce, not only with a view to becoming language professionals, but also to raise awareness of the continuing importance of investing in language services in a fast-moving and globalised Europe, as well as the vital role played by human specialists dedicated to ensuring multilingualism for all EU citizens. 🌍🇪🇺 #multilingualism #EUcareers #EUCdT

We were pleased to take part in the opening session of this year's Multilingualism EU Summer School, and are looking forward to presenting on IATE on Friday 11 July.