No C 23/16 Official Journal of the European Communities 30. 1. 89 
Opinion on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning a specific programme for the 
completion of a machine translation system of advanced design (EUROTRA) 
(89/C 23/08) 
On 16 June 1988, the Council of the European Communities decided to consult the Economic 
and Social Committee, under Article 130q(2) of the Treaty establishing the European 
Economic Community, on the abovementioned proposal. 
The Section for Energy, Nuclear Questions and Research, which was responsible for preparing 
the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its Opinion on 4 November 1988. The 
Rapporteur was Mr Proumens. 
At its 260th plenary session (meeting of 23 November 1988) the Economic and Social 
Committee adopted the following Opinion by a unanimous vote. 
The Committee approves the Commission proposal 
subject to the following comments. 
1. Introduction 
1.1. The Council Decision of 25 July 1988 (!) stipu­
lated that the EUROTRA programme should move on 
from its second phase ('basic and applied linguistics 
research') to the third phase ('stabilization of the 
linguistic model and evaluation of results'). This 
accorded with the Council Decision of November 1982 
on the adoption of a European Economic Community 
research and development programme for a machine 
translation system of advanced design (EUROTRA) (2) 
as amended by the Decision of November 1986 (3). 
1.2. The Decision of 25 July 1988 released the 
5,5 million ECU considered necessary for implementing 
the third phase in accordance with the research pro­
grammes which have already been decided or are in the 
process of being carried out. 
1.3. At the same time, the Commission submitted a 
draft Decision allocating an extra 6,5 million ECU to 
the third phase of EUROTRA. This proposal is the 
subject of the present Opinion. 
1.4. The EUROTRA programme draws on the experi­
ences gained with the SYSTRAN machine translation 
system, which has been in operation at the Commission 
for a dozen or so years. The Committee did not consider 
it necessary and useful in connection with its discussion 
of the present proposal to go into the details of this 
system based, as it is, on technology which is no longer 
equal to the translation needs of the Community insti­
tutions in particular. 2. General comments 
2.1. When consulted on the draft Council Decision 
on the transition to the third phase of the EUROTRA 
programme, the Committee reiterated its support for 
the programme even though the deadline it had been 
given prevented it from judging whether the aims of 
the second phase had been achieved and whether, as 
the Commission stated, the conditions for launching 
the third phase obtained (4). 
2.2. Thus, while anxious not to delay the decision to 
move on to the third phase and thus interrupt EURO-
TRA's implementation, the Committee stated that it 
might still comment in the present Opinion on the 
progress made. 
2.3. In this connection, the Committee has noted with 
considerable interest the final report of the EUROTRA 
assessment panel which accompanies the Commission 
proposal and highlights all the advantages which should 
accrue when EUROTRA is finally set up. However it 
acknowledges that it is impossible at the moment to 
make any definite assessment of the programme's ulti­
mate effectiveness in economic terms. 
2.4. The Committee is nevertheless convinced that in 
view of the large number of potential areas of use, 
the programme's benefits will outweigh the costs. The 
assessment panel's report contains a non-exhaustive list 
which extends beyond the field of translation. 
Thus, EUROTRA should encourage, inter alia, the 
development of a fully-fledged language industry in the 
Community. 
(J) OJ No L 222, 12. 8. 1988, p. 1. 
(2) OJ No L 317, 13. 11. 1982, p. 19. 
(3) OJ No L 341, 4. 12. 1986, p. 39. (4) OJ No C 237, 12. 9. 1988, p. 41. 
30. 1. 89 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 23/17 
2.5. The assessment panel may be said to be generally 
positive in its appraisal, even though a number of 
shortcomings have been pinpointed, especially with 
regard to: 
a) the EUROTRA prototype software design; 
b) the inadequate coordination between the work of 
research teams in the Member States; 
c) the lack of programme management staff. 
The programme's success depends on good manage­
ment, and it is therefore vital to take on adequate staff 
and deploy them efficiently. 
2.6. The Committee notes the Commission's intended 
follow-up to the assessment panel's recommendations 
and, above all, its concern to improve coordination 
between national research teams and take on six com­
putational linguists, for whom the recruitment pro­
cedure is already underway. 
2.7. The Committee has also noted with satisfaction 
the Commission's 'call for expressions of interest con­
cerning an investigation about language industries' 
published in OJ No C 219 of 23 August 1988. The aim 
of this call is to identify companies interested in contract 
work for the Commission in the field in question. 
2.8. This call gives ground for hoping that industry 
will participate shortly in EUROTRA, and also 
responds to another of the assessment panel's rec­
ommendations. The Commission acknowledges fur­
thermore that 'it is expected than an early involvement 
of industry'—which has not been associated in the 
programme so far—'should influence positively the 
direction and results of the research work and improve 
its interaction with the research teams'. 
2.9. The Committee also points out that industry's 
involvement in EUROTRA will require a close study 
of the question of copyright and the implementation of 
appropriate rules and procedures. The Commission is 
well aware of this; not only has it confirmed its inten­
tion to make the appropriate arrangements, it also 
thinks that it will have found satisfactory solutions 
before the end of the third phase, despite the complexity 
of the problem. 
2.10. The Committee is generally pleased to note the 
progress made with the programme, given the scale of 
the objectives assigned to it and the measures taken 
or to be taken by the Commission to improve the 
programme's chances of success and its suitability as 
a basis for industrial development, in particular by 
rescheduling the work programme in the third phase. 3. Specific comments 
3.1. EUROTRA programme's user potential 
3.1.1. The Committee acknowledges that, for obvious 
reasons, the EUROTRA programme's completion is 
first and foremost of particular importance to the Com­
munity institutions. 
3.1.2. Given the scale of funding and staffing 
(150 research staff in the 12 Member States), the Com­
mittee nevertheless wondered about possible appli­
cations for EUROTRA outside the Community insti­
tutions. 
3.1.3. Even though only the Community institutions 
will probably be able to use the full range of languages 
offered by EUROTRA, the Committee thinks that other 
potential users may include international organizations, 
such as the Council of Europe, the North-Atlantic 
Treaty Organization (NATO), the International 
Labour Office (ILO) and the European Free Trade 
Association (EFTA), as well as consultants and pro­
viders of services in the fields of law, science and 
technology, etc. 
3.1.4. In this context, the Committee thinks that the 
Commission should be authorized to negotiate and 
conclude agreements with international organizations 
and third countries with a view to involving them in 
the programme's implementation. However, this should 
not lead to an increase in the number of language pairs 
covered by the programme. 
3.1.5. Certain private organizations are also potential 
users. A planned vocabulary of 20 000 entries—which 
is what the Commission is aiming for at present— 
would seem to be of some value. Furthermore, from 
the point of view of data handling, a medium-sized 
computer can cope with the entire terminology in the 
nine Community languages. 
3.1.6. The Committee is pleased to note that private 
initiatives (e.g. the compiling of a banking dictionary) 
have been launched in parallel to the Commission's 
prototype system. 
3.1.7. A number of trade organizations also have 
requirements in this field, though not necessarily for 
the prototype system's 20 000 entries but for specialist 
technical or technological vocabularies. 
3.1.8. The Committee thinks that in due course 
EUROTRA's potential will have to be exploited to the 
full beyond the confines of the Community institutions, 
in order to ensure maximum profitability. 
No C 23/18 Official Journal of the European Communities 30. 1. 89 
3.2. The social implications of EUROTRA 
3.2.1. The Committee would reiterate its previous 
comments on the social and employment implications 
which a machine translation system will have one day, 
especially for translators. 
3.2.2. The Committee thinks that once translators 
have been relieved of numerous routine translation 
tasks, they should be given more revision work, which 
is more interesting and fulfilling. 
3.2.3. Machine translation will not convey all the finer 
points of a language or be able to cope with legal, 
scientific or medical jargon, etc. It will be the job of 
the translator to check and clarify these details, be they 
semantic, grammatical, legal or technological. 
3.2.4. The Committee calls for a close examination 
of this matter and requests that measures be taken, if 
necessary, to keep translators abreast of, and involved 
in, machine-translation developments and to train com­
putational linguists in translation schools. 
3.2.5. The Committee also discussed the matter of 
typists who at present type out translations on mechan­
ical typewriters. 
Done at Brussels, 23 November 1988. 3.2.6. It thinks that there ought to be a decrease in 
typing work, which will most certainly be replaced by 
(a) encoding work and (b) correcting work associated 
with the activities referred to in 3.2.2. In some respects, 
this problem is linked more generally to the develop­
ment of data processing. 
3.2.7. The Committee also calls for an examination 
of this matter and the adoption of appropriate training 
and retraining measures, as necessitated by the develop­
ment of machine translation. 
3.3. The cultural and educational implications of 
EUROTRA. 
3.3.1. The Committee would point out that the devel­
opment of machine translation must in no way be 
regarded as an alternative to or substitute for the learn­
ing of languages at school and university. 
3.3.2. The Committee would recall in this connection 
its Opinion of 21 May 1986 on the Commission pro­
posal for extending the EUROTRA programme to 
Spain and Portugal I1) which emphasized that 'the use 
of machine translation should not, under any circum­
stances, lead to language teaching being discouraged 
or hampered, because if the peoples of the European 
Community are to be brought closer together it is 
essential that language teaching be continued and 
developed'. 
(!) OJ No C 207, 28. 8. 1986, p. 18. 
The Chairman 
of the Economic and Social Committee 
Alberto MASPRONE