The European Commission has announced a new two-year tender for translation services on behalf of the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT), worth a total EUR 3.5m (USD 4.1m).

Translation services are required for documents relating to the future European Electronic Communications Code (EECC) and to a framework directive for electronic communications networks and services. Documents will include notifications of draft regulatory measures and correspondence between the Commission and the National Regulatory Authorities.

The EECC was proposed by the European Commission in 2016 as a means to deal with the developments in electronic communications that are now part and parcel of daily life, namely: data and internet access services, over-the-top (OTT) services, and online content services such as “cloud computing, the Internet of Things, Machine-to-Machine communication (M2M) etc.”

One of the main objectives of DG CONNECT is to ensure that “the digital economy can develop to its full potential underpinned by initiatives enabling full growth of digital and data technologies”. One of the 2020 milestones for this objective is putting in place Digital Service Infrastructures for all EU Member States to use, which includes Automated Translation infrastructure, suggesting greater investment in machine translation capabilities over the coming years.  

The language requirement for the EECC tender is in into English only, once again rebuffing the notion that English will diminish in prominence after Brexit, the likelihood of which the European Parliament’s Press Service called “virtually non-existent” in a statement given to Slator.

The deadline for the EECC tender is July 2, 2018, after which a framework agreement will be established with a single operator for the entire value of the contract.

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Image: Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society. The Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT) and the Directorate-General for Informatics (DG DIGIT) report to Gabriel. Source: EU