Languages and interpreting at the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg.
Date: 2013-11-13
Institutions: Court of Justice of the European Union
Subjects: Court of Justice of the European Union, interpreting, translation

Languages and interpreting at the
Court of Justice of the European Union
in Luxembourg

Q
D
-
0
3
-
1
3
-
6
1
3
-
E
N
D

-

n
E

n
o
i
t
a
t
E
r
p
r
E
t
n

i

d
n
a
s
E
g
a
U
g
n
a
L

Languages and interpreting at the
Court of Justice of the European Union
 in Luxembourg

“The language of a case shall be Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, 
English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, 
Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, 
Spanish or Swedish.”              

(Article 29 of the Rules of Procedure)                                            

Further information can be found on Curia,  
the multilingual website of the  
European Court of Justice of the European Union: 

www.curia.europa.eu 
interpret@curia.europa.eu
http://europa.eu/interpretation/index_en.htm

October 2013 Edition

doi:10.2862/44977

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Simultaneous 
interpretation  at  the 
public hearings of the Court of Justice, 
the General Court and the Civil Service 
Tribunal  is  provided  by  the  Interpreta-
tion Directorate of the Court of Justice 
of the European Union, which currently 
employs  about  75  permanent  staff,  as 
well as auxiliary conference inter preters 
from  the  EU  register  of  some  3000  ac-
credited  freelance 
interpreters  who 
take on about 25% of the workload.

The interpreters work from the sound-
proof booths in each courtroom. When 
the  Court  of  Justice  was  established 
in  1952  there  were  only  4  official  lan-
guages  (Dutch,  French,  German  and 
Italian), but today the main courtroom 
in  the  new  Court  in  Luxembourg  is 
equipped with 24 interpreting booths.

To  ensure  communication  in  different 
languages  between  all  the  partici-
pants  in  oral  proceedings,  a  team  of 
experienced  conference  interpreters  is 

assigned to each hearing. The interpre-
ting team is tailored to the specific lan-
guage  requirements  of  the  case  being 
heard  in  the  courtroom,  which  will  be 
determined by the following: 

•	 The	“language	of	the	case”,	i.e.	a	lan-
guage  chosen  by  the  parties  from 
among	the	official	languages	of	the	
European Union

•	 The	 languages	 of	 any	 the	 Member	

states intervening

•	 The	 language	 needs	 of	 the	 Judges	

and	Advocates-General

The range of languages therefore varies 
from case to case. Only rarely does the 
Court  require  interpretation  from  all 
official  languages  into  all  official  lan-
guages. 

French is the internal working language 
of  the  Court,  and  the  interpreters  are 
not  present  at  deliberations,  since  the 
rules of procedure state that the Court 
shall deliberate in closed session.

NL

ET

BG

•	 The	language	of	any	visiting	groups	

attending the hearing

RO

MT

SK

Good  interpreters  must  have  a  tho-
rough  knowledge  of  all  their  working 
languages,  but  other  skills  are  equally 
important.  Conference  interpreting  is 
not  a  word-for-word  translation  exer-
cise;  analytical  skills  and  the  ability  to 
understand the speaker’s point of view 
are essential to the quality of the inter-
preter’s  performance,  as  is  familiarity 
with the subject matter. At the Court of 
Justice  precision  is  essential,  and  prior 
study of the case file is an integral part 
of  an  interpreter’s  work.  Conference 
interpreters  must  respect  certain  pro-
fessional principles, above all confiden-
tiality.  Interpreters  are  bound  by  the 
strictest  secrecy  with  regard  to  all  the 
information  disclosed  before  and  du-
ring hearings. The interpreter works as 
part of a team both during the prepara-
tion stage and in the courtroom.

PL

EL

DA

HR

EN

IT

SV

PT

CS

LT

FR

FI

HU

SL

DE

ES

LV