Many horror stories have come into public light. For example, many wheelchair users are not permitted to use the toilet on planes and must either wear incontinence pads or urinate in bottles. Following this regulation, airports and air carriers have to provide assistance to disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility in order to enable them to fly on an equal footing with other passengers.
The guidelines make it clear that disabled persons are entitled to assistance on-board aircraft, subject only to safety requirements. A distinction has to be made between requirements based on safety and those relating to the passengers' comfort. On-board assistance includes help with accessing the toilets, where this is possible for crew members without risk to their own health and safety where available e.
La proposition de la Commission ne fait toutefois pas abstraction des gares ferroviaires de voyageurs. Cela pourrait concerner notamment Paris, Bruxelles ou Londres. These are no more than forecasts which have no legal force, but the Commission has laid down the criteria to be applied in its priorities. This objective should be at the core of all developments in this area. How does the Commission take these nodes into account in its actions and initiatives? In the specific case of railway facilities, can the Commission say whether current legislation or future proposals will influence the flow of railway passengers and the organisation of these nodes?
The Commission proposal on Union guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network. This could apply for instance in Paris, Brussels or London. Through the better connection between rail and the other modes of transport in particular road and air transport , the Commission proposal aims at increasing passenger flows on railways and make them more efficient.
Peut-elle donner des exemples concrets? Some local politicians recognise the problem and are rallying to try to find effective solutions. However, there are still challenges to overcome. Thousands of young people leave school with no qualifications. The Union is able to play an important role in the fight against school dropouts. Can it provide specific examples?
More specifically, how much political flexibility does the Commission have in this matter? Reducing early school leaving is one of the headline targets of the Europe strategy. While Member States are solely responsible for the organisation of their education systems, the Commission supports the implementation of policies to reduce early school leaving, encompassing prevention, intervention, and compensation measures. Monitoring early school leaving in the European Union is part of the Europe strategy. In addition, it advocates a better targeted use of European Structural Funds to invest in policies against early school leaving and to support young people in achieving necessary qualifications and increasing their employability.
Il revient sur la politique du tout normatif. Les circuits courts de distribution entre le producteur et le consommateur sont en plein essor. In this increasingly open world consumers are becoming more demanding when it comes to safety. The consumer is making a stand against the policy of regulating everything. What the consumer wants today is a clearer understanding of where the food he eats on a daily basis comes from.
And what he wants, preferably, is for it to come from a region he knows: There is certainly a demand for this. How important is this issue in the reform of the common agricultural policy proposed by the Commission last October? A better functioning food supply chain is one of the cornerstones of the proposed CAP reform, aimed at achieving increased efficiencies, enhanced productivity and a better use of scarce resources. Against the background of growing consumer demand for locally produced food and greater transparency and traceability, the need to lower the carbon footprint of food transportation and a more equitable distribution of added value, the Commission has proposed a range of measures to encourage cooperation and collective action among producers and to promote wider cooperation in the food chain.
After rural development will continue to offer support for farmers to cover the initial costs of becoming involved in various types of quality schemes. These schemes could be established by EU legislation or by Member States, or they could be other voluntary schemes recognised by Member States and meeting EU guidelines. They could cover a range of product characteristics — including place of production. Lobby gay ottiene centinaia di migliaia di soldi pubblici europei per finanziare sondaggio non scientificamente attendibile su discriminazioni verso LGBT.
In terzo luogo, il sondaggio sembrerebbe creato ad hoc per produrre un esito scontato: In quarto luogo, i destinatari del sondaggio sono soltanto gli LGBT. Questi dati sono poi utilizzati per elaborare le politiche attuate dall'Unione per lottare contro l'omofobia. As European Dignity Watch has pointed out, this online survey does not satisfy the basic scientific requirements for an opinion poll. Firstly, ILGA does not seem a reliable body to promote the survey since it is not an accredited research institute but a recognised association for the protection of LGBT citizens. Secondly, there are doubts about the reliability of the survey since, contrary to the basic rules of statistical sampling, it is possible for the same person to complete the survey several times, effectively undermining its validity.
Thirdly, the survey seems to have been created ad hoc to produce a given outcome: Lastly, the recipients of the survey are exclusively members of the LGBT community. Does it believe that surveys drawn up as described above are prejudicial to non-gay citizens? Does it not believe that the use of such extensive EU funds which come from all EU taxpayers, LGBT citizens and otherwise, is disproportionate for the financing of online surveys in which heterosexuals cannot participate? Is there not a risk that surveys of this kind provide imprecise data which can be used by bodies aiming to seek funds from the European Union?
The Commission believes that the work of the Agency for Fundamental Rights FRA as regards sexual orientation and gender identity is essential to obtain missing data on homophobic and gender related speech, crime and other forms of violence. By its very nature, such work requires a specific expertise and will by definition target the groups most concerned by these phenomena. FRA is fully responsible for its budget and the annual work programme implementation which falls under the annual scrutiny of the Court of Auditors. As member of the FRA Management Board, the Commission is committed to ensure that financial and scientific standards are respected, while respecting FRA's independence.
Intende adottare misure per sollecitare il governo italiano a recepire la direttiva in tempi brevi, al fine di garantire ai cittadini la tutela cui spetta loro? La Commissione europea non ha il potere di costringere gli Stati membri ad attuare le direttive prima del termine stabilito per il loro recepimento. Per quanto concerne il recepimento della direttiva sui diritti dei consumatori, la situazione varia a seconda degli Stati membri: This results in a great many complaints from Italian citizens who are forced to spend huge amounts of time and money trying to conclude contracts that prove to be different from the initial agreement or which they did not even want but which were signed all the same by the supply company, and are therefore in complete violation of the rights of EU consumers.
Besides the lack complete legislation, there is also the malfunctioning of the Registro delle Opposizioni [Call Prevention Registry] which has already been reported by various consumer associations. This Register is managed by the Fondazione Bordoni , which is linked to the Italian Ministry of Economic Development and is therefore subject to a clear conflict of interest.
Is it aware of the aforementioned problem? Will it adopt measures to urge the Italian Government to transpose the directive quickly to guarantee citizens the protection they are due? Can it provide any information regarding the progress of the transposition of the directive in other Member States? The European Commission does not have the power to force Member States to implement directives before the deadline agreed for transposition. However, the Commission does provide help and assistance in the process towards implementation, as it is also the case for this directive.
For this purpose, a meeting at expert level is being organised for this Autumn. Indeed, as it is also stated in the recently adopted European Consumer Agenda, the timely and efficient implementation and enforcement of these new rules is essential. The Commission would invite the Honourable Member to provide any further detailed information at her disposal related to this issue. As to the progress of transposition of the Consumer Rights Directive in the different Member States, it varies across the Member States: Infatti, dalla loro cottura si forma l'acrilammide, una sostanza che tende a sedimentarsi nei tessuti muscolari e che rappresenta un pericolo per la salute, soprattutto nei bambini.
Questa dose indicativa viene regolarmente superata dal consumo giornaliero di patate e cereali del cittadino medio europeo. La Commissione ha promosso una campagna di divulgazione capillare per far conoscere questa problematica in tutti gli Stati membri? Non ritiene necessaria un'azione di sensibilizzazione, che inizi nel contesto scolastico, al fine di rendere consapevoli i giovanissimi cittadini europei dei rischi legati al consumo di cibi fritti?
Tali indagini perseguono l'obiettivo di sensibilizzare gli operatori del settore alimentare e di stabilire in che modo sono applicate le misure attualmente disponibili per ridurre il tenore di acrilammide negli alimenti. La Commissione sta raccogliendo presso gli Stati membri le informazioni preliminari sui risultati delle indagini. Two of the most common foods on the tables of European consumers, potatoes and cereals, if fried at high temperatures, can prove carcinogenic and toxic.
In fact, cooking them produces acrylamide, a substance which tends to settle in muscular tissue and which represents a health risk, especially for children. This suggested dose is regularly exceeded by the daily consumption of potatoes and cereals by the average European citizen. Can the Commission provide data on the situation in Italy and in other Member States? Is the Commission aware of possible measures that may reduce the impact of acrylamide on the health of European citizens? Has the Commission undertaken a wide-ranging information campaign to bring this problem to public attention in all Member States?
An updated report is expected to be issued in early autumn The investigations serve to raise awareness among food business operators and to find out how the currently available mitigation measures for reducing acrylamide in food are implemented. The Commission is currently in the process of collecting preliminary information from the Member States on the outcome of the investigations. By the end of the Commission will evaluate the results of these investigations as well as the results from the acrylamide monitoring exercise. To inform consumers and food business operators about the risks and mitigation measures linked to acrylamide, specific brochures have been elaborated together with the food industry and are distributed to citizens and food business operators via national authorities.
Consultazione on-line della Commissione per le politiche UE. Tali consultazioni prevedono la compilazione di un questionario inerente alla materia in oggetto entro una data indicata, di cui la Commissione dovrebbe tener conto nella formulazione delle future politiche europee. Scorrendo i dati di alcune consultazioni si rilevano tassi di partecipazione estremamente bassi, soprattutto da parte dei privati cittadini, solitamente nell'ordine di poche decine.
I numeri variano a seconda dell'importanza dell'argomento per le parti interessate e per i cittadini. Le risposte sono spesso trasmesse anche attraverso canali paralleli o tramite le associazioni di parti interessate. La Commissione consulta sistematicamente le parti interessate su tutte le principali iniziative e s'impegna a raggiungere tutte le categorie di destinatari interessati, compresi i cittadini.
Dal , al fine di assicurare una vasta ed efficace partecipazione alle consultazioni, la Commissione pubblica le tabelle di marcia di tutte le principali proposte e mette i cittadini al corrente delle consultazioni previste e delle valutazioni d'impatto. Per favorire ulteriormente le risposte dei cittadini, dall'inizio del la Commissione ha inoltre esteso la durata delle consultazioni pubbliche da 8 a 12 settimane.
Each European citizen has the right to take part in online consultations regarding EU policies. They involve a questionnaire on the issue in question to be filled in by a specified date, and which the Commission should take into account when formulating future European policies. Scrolling through the data relating to some consultations we can see extremely low participation rates, above all by private citizens, usually no more than a few dozen.
Does the Commission believe that, given these poor results, public consultation can be considered an effective democratic tool for dialogue with EU citizens? Does the Commission consider that it should improve the information available on this platform, which is clearly unknown to European citizens or at least perceived by them as being of little use?
The number of responses is only one factor in assessing the effectiveness of a public consultation. Numbers vary depending on the relevance of the topic for stakeholders and citizens. Responses are often also transmitted through parallel channels or through stakeholders' associations. That being said, the Commission is attentive to low response rates and its impact assessment guidelines warn services against drawing firm conclusions when responses are few or represent a narrow range of interests.
The Commission systematically consults stakeholders on all major initiatives and strives to reach all target audiences including citizens. Starting in , so as to ensure wide and effective participation in its consultations, the Commission publishes roadmaps for all its major proposals, informing about planned consultation and impact assessment work.
Stakeholders registered in the joint Transparency Register benefit from an automatic alert service for newly published consultations and roadmaps. These measures should allow citizens and other stakeholders to plan their inputs and express their views at a much earlier stage than before.
Finally, a review of public consultation policy is currently ongoing and will look at the need for, and ways to, extend the reach of consultations. What mechanisms are available to the Commission to check that Calypso is being correctly implemented and what steps is it taking or is it prepared to take in the event of any breach of the basic principles of the programme?
What contact point is provided should there be any complaints about failure to correctly implement the programme? Has the Commission already been obliged to take action in respect of failure to correctly implement the Calypso instrument? So far the Calypso initiative is implemented through calls for proposals and calls for tenders. The provisions of the Financial Regulation about procurement and grants title V and VI are fully applicable, notably through the assessment of implementation reports and financial statements.
No complaints have been received so far as Calypso is not yet a programme. No action has been taken by the Commission at this stage in respect of failure implementing the Calypso initiative. Will the Commission commit to undertaking this research and taking appropriate action once the research findings are known? Besides environmental factors, will the Commission take other factors into account, such as the cost to consumers?
The problem posed by the question is part of the larger problem of interoperability. While the Commission does not plan specific research on the precise issue raised by the question, it actively addresses the larger problem of interoperability and upgradability of software and hardware by encouraging and supporting the use of open standards whenever possible, because open standards can guarantee interoperability of hardware and software solutions from different vendors.
In that respect the Commission is carefully monitoring these developments, especially from the point of view of consumer protection and software interoperability. Ongoing work by the European Commission is fully in line with this direction see e. The debate surrounding the use of antibiotics for human beings and animals appears regularly in the Danish media and amongst professionals.
My question is as follows:. Marketing authorisations for antibiotics for human use have been granted mostly by the Member States. The Commission does not possess information in which Member States it is possible to buy antibiotics only on medical prescription. A veterinary prescription is required for the dispensing of medicines which are intended for the treatment of conditions that require a precise diagnosis or their use may cause effects which impede or interfere with subsequent diagnostic or therapeutic measures. Additionally, only persons empowered by the national legislation may possess veterinary medicines or substances that have anti-infectious effects.
Hierbei wurden erhebliche Fortschritte erzielt. Die meisten Mitgliedstaaten haben auch effiziente zentrale Anlaufstellen eingerichtet. Please provide a detailed explanation. The Commission has been monitoring Member State progress in the implementation of start-up centres since following the Spring Council conclusions of The target for Member States is to reduce the costs and times for administrative procedures to start up a company and to create one-stop shops where all procedures can be carried out.
Substantial progress has been achieved. Most Member States have also established effective one-stop shops. All information on this issue and year on year progress for each country can be found in: In some countries this is a national strategy; in others namely Italy and Spain it is a regional and sometimes even local matter.
In this area Member States and Regions are supported by the Commission via the Structural Funds and also via the dissemination of good practices. In this respect Barcelona Activa, the entrepreneurship support centre of the city of Barcelona, was awarded the European Entrepreneurship Award as a model of entrepreneurship promotion and support. Daraus resultieren folgende Fragen:. Einhebungsregelungen in den einzelnen EU-Staaten? Anyone travelling on holiday by car needs to comply with a large number of rules and regulations, some of which differ significantly from the norms in their home country.
Road usage charges and the levying of vignette fees, tolls and special charges are dealt with by the different Member States in widely different ways. Some countries operate an electronic vignette system, while others collect the fees at separate toll booths. Driving to Split in Croatia is also an expensive business for the consumer. Likewise, the payment arrangements differ greatly, as credit cards are not always accepted alongside cash. In France, some toll booths require the driver to throw the fee into a basket. However, no change is given. Also, in some cities, such as London, charges are payable before entering the city centre, while low-emission zones exist in large German cities.
How does it assess the different vignettes and special fees and the different payment arrangements and levy regulations in the various EU Member States? There is no EU legislation that specifies rules for charging passenger cars. Consequently, Member States are free to put in place road charging arrangements as long as the Treaty principles of non-discrimination and proportionality are respected. The Commission would also like to draw the attention of the Honourable Member on the upcoming public consultation in the context of the preparation of a possible initiative on road charging.
This consultation will help to better appreciate the impact of non-harmonised road charging schemes on road users. As mentioned by the Honourable Member, drivers' associations provide information on road charging arrangmeents in different countries. Drivers can also check toll rates directly on the websites of toll chargers; the amounts of road charges tolls and vignettes are also often automatically calculated by the online route planning tools.
There is no EU legislation regulating the fines imposed in individual EU Member States for toll dodging or driving without a vignette. Such fines should respect the Treaty principles of proportionality and non-discrimination. Given that the capital in question is to be channelled via Greek banks to SMEs to boost growth and employment in Greece, what alternative solutions have been proposed? In line with the decision taken by national and international authorities, before signing loans with beneficiary banks, the latter must be appropriately capitalised in accordance with the requirements of the Bank of Greece and the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund.
Overall, the Commission, the EIB and the Greek authorities are working together in a constructive spirit in order to make tangible progress on all open fronts. Kommissionsmitglied Barnier hat am Die Kommission wird gebeten, aktuelle Informationen zum Stand der Diskussionen mit den Mitgliedstaaten zu geben. Can the Commission give a detailed update on the discussions with the Member States? Has the Commission finally reached an agreement with the Council for a mandate for a treaty? The negotiations in the relevant Council bodies are to continue in the autumn.
The Commission will of course make all efforts necessary to facilitate an agreement between the Member States. Sprunghafter Anstieg der Arbeitslosenquote in Griechenland. Data showed that That is a rise from It is the highest quarterly unemployment rate since figures were first published back in The jobless rate for the first quarter of was Is the Commission considering setting targeted measures, making more effective use of EU structural funds and setting up a dedicated taskforce for Greece? How can the Commission support Greek authorities implementing comprehensive reform programmes aimed at unblocking economic growth?
How can the Commission support fiscal and financial stability, create jobs and mitigate the social impact of the crisis? What are the efforts that the Commission can make and are essential to spur job opportunities, also for young people? This includes controlling public finances, improving credit flows to the real economy by recapitalising banks and implementing SME support schemes, modernising public administration and improving the business environment, as well as tackling the social consequences of the crisis.
EU Member States and the Commission are providing unprecedented support to Greece at a very difficult time. With the Economic Adjustment Programme, Greece has at its disposal financial resources that allow it to implement the needed fiscal consolidation over a number of years. In addition, European Social Fund resources are available to support active labour market policies, invest in education and training, develop social economy or prevent the marginalisation of vulnerable people. In the context of the Youth Opportunities Initiative the Commission set up Action Teams for eight Member States with the highest youth unemployment rates, including Greece.
This reform, which will come into effect in , also provides for a large proportion of EURES activities to be financed through the ESF programmes in the Member States, thereby enabling them to be tailored to national labour market needs. One of the objectives of the EURES reform is to address the structural mismatch between the supply of and demand for labour by increasing intra-EU mobility.
EURES will therefore be transformed to support both specific groups of workers with a high propensity for mobility and employers experiencing recruitment difficulties in their home territory. The EURES network will be opened to new providers, thereby increasing its outreach capacity on the job vacancy market and expanding the pool of suitable candidates.
This should provide easier access to more employment opportunities and support employers in recruiting the talented and skilled workers they need. Education, training and re-skilling in line with the labour market needs, and well-functioning employment services that support the matching of jobseekers with vacancies also within Member States are all crucial in this respect. Under the proposed regulation, the ESF can contribute to promoting employment and supporting labour mobility by several means, including local employment initiatives and support for labour mobility which will improve the access to employment of job-seekers and inactive people.
Al-Qaeda addestra convertiti all'Islam per compiere nuovi attentati. Gli ufficiali militari yemeniti hanno affermato che al-Qaeda starebbe addestrando cittadini europei nelle zone meridionali del paese. Gli Stati membri e il Consiglio mantengono contatti regolari con gli altri partner per quanto riguarda la minaccia terroristica. Gli Stati membri discutono regolarmente della minaccia terroristica nell'ambito dei competenti organi del Consiglio.
The AP said that all the agencies had spoken on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the case publicly. He is in his 30s and does not come from an immigrant background. He converted to Islam in and subsequently became radicalised and travelled to Yemen to receive terrorist training. He is believed still to be there. Yemeni military officials say they have information on Europeans training with al-Qaeda in the southern part of the country.
Is the Council aware of these latest reports of a Norwegian al-Qaeda operative who is prepared to carry out a terror plot? Is the Council prepared to coordinate efforts among the Member States in order to ensure that they are all informed of the nature of this threat? Member States and the Council are in regular contact with other partners on the terrorist threat. For example, representatives from the Norwegian authorities were invited to the Council's Terrorism Working Party in the aftermath of the Oslo attacks in July last year.
The coordination between Member States on terrorism issues is carried out within the competent Council bodies as well as in bilateral and multilateral fora. Member States discuss the terrorist threat regularly in the competent Council bodies. Tuttavia, il capo di Boko Haram, Abubaker Shekau, ha di recente dichiarato che tali supposizioni sono vere e anche il governo nigeriano le condivide. He believes that the three most dangerous groups operating in Africa are: The three groups are intent on creating Islamic states across North Africa.
In the past there were questions over the connections between al-Qaeda and African-based jihadist groups, but there was always uncertainty over whether there was a direct, operational link. However, the head of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau has now declared that this is true, and the Nigerian Government supports the notion. Possible coordination and cooperation between AQIM, Boko Haram and al-Shabab is a matter of serious concern in need of continued attention. The three groups' agendas and objectives are distinct but they all stand to gain from such cooperation.
Following the Malian government's loss of control over the north of the country, the existence of a safe haven for extremists and organised criminals in the north of Mali adds a new and dangerous dimension to the situation. The EU is working with the authorities in all the countries concerned, both in terms of political and security dialogue as well as concrete practical support through the EDF and the Instrument for Stability. The EU Strategy for Security and Development in the Sahel, aiming at supporting the countries' efforts, is now fully in the process of operational implementation, including significant concrete measures to address regional security and development challenges.
It recognises the competences of the Member States in the area of the organisation of sports but also states that action at EU level can address challenges such as violence and intolerance linked to sporting events. Is the Commission intending to introduce measures to ensure that the organisation and promotion of major sporting events will henceforth be subject to safety inspections?
The Commission does not intend to introduce new measures to ensure that the organisation of major sporting events is subject to safety inspection. The Commission intends to continue to implement the Positive Agenda with Turkey in the most constructive way possible, while taking due account of the concerns of the Member States.
Fremskydning af arbejdet med definition af hormonforstyrrende stoffer. Kommissionen agter at overholde sine retlige forpligtelser i henhold til forordning EF nr. New research from the University of Southern Denmark shows that the children of female gardeners who have been in contact with pesticides containing endocrine-disrupting chemicals are being affected by these substances, despite the women having stopped working with the pesticides early in their pregnancy.
Before this definition is presented, national authorities are unable to ban pesticides on the basis of their endocrine-disrupting properties. In view of the new findings from the University of Southern Denmark, it is appropriate for the European Commission to develop its work to define endocrine-disrupting chemicals to make it possible to ban pesticides containing these substances.
Will the European Commission take the research from the University of Southern Denmark into consideration when working to define endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and does the Commission think that the definition process can be developed? If its work to produce a definition will not be completed until , will the Commission allow the Danish authorities to introduce a ban on those pesticides which, according to the research from the University of Southern Denmark, have endocrine-disrupting properties affecting the children of women who have been in contact with the pesticides during pregnancy?
The Commission intends to take into account all relevant research on endocrine disruptors in an effort to arrive at a suitable definition of endocrine-disrupting chemicals. The Commission will determine in due course the definition process required. This process will be discussed with the relevant ad-hoc groups, involving the Member States and other relevant partners. The question of a possible Danish ban is therefore not relevant. How does the Commission intend to overcome bureaucratic problems regarding health insurance issues for students who want to study in another Member State? As a matter of principle, students staying temporarily in the country where they pursue their studies are regarded as still residing and insured in their home country.
They are therefore entitled to necessary healthcare in the country where they are studying on the same conditions as persons insured in that country.
Maria Burnett Italian-English literary translator
This not only means that they should be treated under the same conditions, but also that they will have to pay any patient fees that might apply. The European Health Insurance Card confirms this entitlement to necessary healthcare within the public healthcare system. A student can obtain the card by contacting the competent institution in the home country where they are insured. A student who is not insured in their home country should contact the social security institution of the country where they are studying.
The institution will then assess the situation and determine whether the student can be considered as residing and insured in the country where they are studying. A student who is employed during their studies is regarded as insured in the country of employment. They should therefore contact the social security institution of the country where they are employed to find out more about their right to healthcare. In the case of student mobility in the framework of the Erasmus programme, the sending higher education institution has the obligation to inform outgoing students about the arrangements regarding insurance in the host country and to verify that they have sufficient coverage.
In the USA, in order to arrest people trafficking in this type of information, the FBI created an online forum where users could exchange stolen information on accounts and credit cards. This brought to light dozens of persons who were stealing hundreds of millions of dollars. The Commission is aware of the growing threat of identity theft as a crime, of which trafficking in credit card information is but one form.
EC3 will serve to better coordinate information flows and cooperation and thus to enable a more effective response to cybercrime threats, including those related to payment card fraud, phishing and identity theft. Furthermore, the Commission is participating in the SecuRe Pay Forum dealing with the security of retail payments that has been set up by the Eurosystem. It is a voluntary cooperation between EU overseers and supervisors to address weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the field of payments security.
The Commission and Europol participate as observers.
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The Commission is currently conducting a study on identity theft and on possible measures to address this issue. The economic crisis and job losses have put services previously taken for granted by European citizens at risk. Furthermore, the dramatic reduction in household incomes means that in some cases it is almost impossible for households to pay their electricity bills. Can the Commission tell me whether it is collecting data on the percentage of European citizens with problems meeting their basic electricity needs?
To what extent is the increase in this percentage in Member States badly affected by the economic crisis? Does it intend to take specific initiatives and make specific proposals to Member States that are implementing programmes and that have been included in the EFSF, in order to determine the increased number of households without electricity? According to these figures, the percentage of households unable to keep their home adequately warm between and has increased in the following Member States: In Greece, the percentage has increased considerably among the population living with an income below the poverty threshold from The percentage of people with arrears on utility bills between and has risen in the following Member States: Figures for should be available within the coming months.
In its communication Reference: Can the Commission see the danger that, due to the crisis, some Member States are falling behind in the effort to obtain EU investment in new technologies? What are its proposals for Member States to reverse this situation? Less developed regions and those affected by the crisis may use KETs to modernise the industrial base and improve competitiveness resulting in growth and jobs. The KETs policy aims to reinforce technological excellence in Europe. KETs will also be included in the context of strategies for smart specialisation to identify a regions' niche in EU value chains and allocate funding.
Smart specialisation is an ex-ante conditionality for the ERDF. Given the high investment costs of KETs projects, it is essential to use synergies between funds. Member States and regions should proceed similarly with the implementation of smart specialisation strategies and the KETs cluster-specific actions. KETs feed many value chains. KETs based products often provide great added value when integrated into complex systems.
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These subsequent applications result in greater economic growth and competitiveness. According to Cedefop data, the economic crisis has aggravated the phenomenon of part-time employment or underemployment of the youth in many Member States. The most telling fact of all is that most young people who are underemployed say that they want to and are ready at any time to take up full-time work. Has it discovered a significant increase in underemployment and the creation of part-time jobs compared to full-time ones for the youth in the EU? In which countries is the phenomenon most apparent?
Does the Commission have data showing that Community resources are mainly being used to create full-time jobs for the youth? Underemployment concerns people who are employed part-time, but who wish and are available to work more hours. This includes rechanneling funds from areas with lower uptake of funding to measures which support the transition of young people from education to employment and their efforts to find an open-ended contract.
The EU cannot, however, ensure that jobs created thanks to structural funds' investments are full-time: The problem of homelessness, together with that of citizens in need of social protection, is growing in many European countries faced with unprecedented economic difficulties. Have other Member States have made use of resources for this purpose? Homelessness is examined by the Commission in the framework of the European Platform against Poverty. The European Regional Development Fund co-funds housing interventions in favour of marginalised groups of the population and as part of an integrated approach which includes, in particular actions in the fields of education, health, social affairs, employment and security and desegregation measures.
These actions may be co-funded with other sources of funding, including the European Social Fund to promote labour market integration of marginalised groups. A number of countries, including Bulgaria, Spain, Romania, Greece and Hungary, are exploring the possibility to set up operations and fund a number of local or regional pilot integrated housing interventions. France has proceeded to modify operational programmes to allow interventions in this field.
These interventions are targeting principally, but not exclusively, Roma marginalised communities. The percentage remains at 3. The acute situation with regard to youth unemployment has meant that both at EU and national levels much attention has been concentrated on this segment of the population.
Participation of the low-skilled in lifelong training remains a priority. Priorities for are set in line with the strategic objectives of ET The annual Labour Force Survey is the source of data on participation in lifelong learning. Zunahme des Menschenhandels zum Zweck der sexuellen Ausbeutung. Menschenhandel ist ein Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit, und doch nimmt er weltweit zu, nicht zuletzt in Europa. Warum stellt der Menschenhandel nach Auffassung der Kommission auch im Jahrhundert noch immer ein solches unermessliches Problem dar?
Daher ist es wichtig, koordiniert und umfassend gegen den Menschenhandel vorzugehen. Human trafficking is a crime against humanity, yet it is on the rise globally, not least in Europe. The main victims of this appalling crime are young women and girls, enslaved and exploited for sex. Could the Commission say who the victims of human trafficking are? From where do these victims come? The recently adopted EU Strategy towards the Eradication of Trafficking in Human Beings stresses that it is the slavery of our times.
Traffickers constantly adapt their methods. Therefore, it is important to address human trafficking in a coordinated and comprehensive manner. It prioritises the prevention of the crime, the prosecution of traffickers, the protection of the victims, cooperation and coordination. Due to the complexity of trafficking in human beings, it is difficult to gauge its full extent. Comparable and reliable data is however very important. In the autumn of , the Commission, in cooperation with Eurostat, will publish detailed results.
The Commission views protection and assistance of victims as a priority. In addition to guaranteeing the victim's human rights, effective protection and assistance, measures are stipulated covering a wide spectrum: Griechenland wirkt an den Arbeiten dieser Gruppe mit. According to recent figures published by the Commission, How can the Commission contribute to advancing educational reform on pre-school and school education? What policies have to be adopted? What steps need to be taken to improve educational outcomes, thus helping reduce school drop-out rates?
Will the Commission consider launching an analysis with a view to improving data on early school leaving in vocational education and training? It underlines the need to invest in evidence-based and comprehensive policies and especially in prevention and intervention measures; a policy framework annexed to the recommendation provides further detail on the most relevant and successful measures to reduce ESL. While Member States are solely responsible for the organisation of their education systems, the Commission supports them by promoting the exchange of experiences and good practices at EU level.
First results will be available by end ; Greece is represented in this group. The Commission also intends to improve the knowledge base on early school leaving processes in Europe, especially in the area of vocational education and training. Currently the Commission is assessing the quality and availability of existing data and information; targeted studies in this area might follow.
That unfavourable report was submitted shortly before the publication of the last European Commission report on child poverty and child welfare. It is thought that not enough information or enough statistics are being collected to properly examine the issue of child poverty. Up-to-date information on child poverty must be made available to put in place appropriate measures for child protection. Could the Commission explain the lack of up-to-date statistical information when such reports are being prepared? Could the Commission give more information about the current available funding for the collection of statistics on child poverty in the EU?
For this purpose, the draft SILC ad hoc module currently being prepared by Eurostat is expected to collect, inter alia , 13 material deprivation variables dedicated to children. It should be noted that in the SILC survey children are not directly interviewed but the information on their situation is gathered by dedicated questions to the adults of their household. No other funding is foreseen at EU level for the collection of statistics on poverty and social exclusion in general and child poverty in particular.
All the experts in these fields agree that the solution is to address these issues within schools and families. Does the Commission agree with the analysis that social behaviour in Europe tends to be laden with prejudices against diversity, which are reflected in attitudes such as those mentioned above, and which lead to contempt towards others, with sometimes very serious consequences? Would the Commission agree that tackling these attitudes from an early age would improve diversity acceptance rates? Adequate policies at national level combating prejudices both at schools and at all levels of society are key to improve diversity acceptance rates of citizens.
How does the Council assess the abovementioned recommendations for surplus countries to implement policies on rebalancing? Does it agree with these recommendations? If so, what policies were indicated by the results of these assessments? In the context of the European Semester, the Commission subsequently conducted an in-depth analysis of the countries specified in the report, which gave rise to recommendations to correct the identified imbalances under the preventive arm of the procedure.
Among the 27 country-specific recommendations, twelve identified risks related to excessive macroeconomic imbalances and proposed actions to be taken to allow early identification and prevention of excessive imbalances. The implementation of the recommendations will be monitored closely and on an ongoing basis by the Commission services. The Council is open to discussing them, whenever they are submitted to it by the Commission. The Council has not discussed specifically recommendations made by the International Monetary Fund but it may take its views and conclusions into consideration.
How does the Commission assess the abovementioned recommendations for surplus countries to implement policies on rebalancing? The Commission concurs with the International Monetary Fund conclusions mentioned by the Honourable Member in her question on the need to adjust nominal wage growth to the specific conditions of Member States, in particular their productivity levels and the need to restore competitiveness. As stated by the Commissioner in charge for Economic and Monetary affairs and quoted in the question, the Commission agrees that countries with a significant current account surplus can contribute to rebalancing by removing unneccessary constraints on domestic demand and it encourages incentives to the latter via wage increases in line with productivity in these countries.
Moreover, in a number of cases the CSRs encouraged individual Member States to strenghten the link between wages and productivity levels.
About the author(s)
The Commission is currently undertaking a study regarding surplus economies which will become available in the following months. In particular, can it supply details regarding the following: The experts of the Committee analysed scientific articles as well as publications from the industry available at that time.
Regarding diet, the main aspect quoted in the report is the impact of different lighting regimes on feed conversion rates. Further detailed information can be found in the references provided at the end of the report. How will the Union ensure that upcoming trade and investment agreements with Egypt are consistent with human rights obligations and EU development policy? In relation to proposed trade agreements, when can outcomes of impact assessments be expected including environmental, sustainability and human rights impact assessments?
How will it ensure that informed, inclusive and transparent public debate can take place in Egypt on trade negotiations? The human rights' clauses of these agreements will therefore continue to apply. Measures trade or non-trade could also be proposed to maximise the benefits of the DCFTAs and to prevent or minimise potential negative impacts.
This assessment will be carried out in close consultation with local CSOs. The views of Civil Society, in particular as regards democratic and social reforms, will continue to be fully taken into account in the assessment of the progress achieved by the partner countries. This is undoubtedly a particularly important step towards the eradication of human trafficking across the Member States. This is a particularly pertinent issue in Northern Ireland which has recently become a thoroughfare for traffickers into both England and the Republic of Ireland.
Joint investigation teams have been proposed as a means to facilitate this cooperation:. The Commission also funds projects related to the establishment of JITs. The criteria, according to which projects are to be funded, are specific to each call for proposals. The Commission report on minor use pesticides has been long promised.
Can the Commission provide an exact date when Parliament might expect to receive this report? Tale principio sarebbe stato inserito per un maggiore risparmio per le Amministrazioni dello Stato e per un miglioramento dei saldi di bilancio. Infatti, nel settore privato italiano, si giunge al massimo, in alcuni contratti collettivi, alla previsione dell'omesso pagamento dei primi tre giorni di malattia, subentrando dal quarto giorno l'Istituto nazionale per la previdenza sociale INPS ; inoltre, nessun contratto priva il lavoratore della retribuzione o di una parte sostanziale di essa oltre il terzo giorno.
La normativa nazionale descritta dall'onorevole parlamentare riguarda il trattamento economico per i periodi di malattia dei dipendenti pubblici italiani. Tali disposizioni inoltre non contemplano il caso di condizioni lavorative differenti tra dipendenti del settore pubblico e dipendenti del settore privato.
Translating Echoes
Le normative citate si riferiscono al coordinamento dei sistemi di sicurezza sociale per i lavoratori che si spostano tra gli Stati membri dell'UE. Esse quindi non riguardano in alcun modo il trattamento di malattia. Gli articoli del Trattato citati dall'onorevole parlamentare riguardano peraltro politiche e iniziative dell'Unione di portata generale e di conseguenza non sono applicabili ai provvedimenti nazionali degli Stati membri.
La legislazione europea contro le discriminazioni contempla unicamente cause specifiche di discriminazione. La legislazione europea contro le discriminazioni non contempla la discriminazione tra diversi settori di occupazione o diverse mansioni lavorative. This is without prejudice to any more favourable treatment to which they may be entitled under collective agreements or sector-specific rules on absences resulting from accidents at work or work-related illnesses or hospitalisation, or on absences due to serious illnesses that require life-saving treatment.
This provision was apparently included in order to save the government money and improve the state of public finances. However, the provisions of this law appear to result in an unlawful disparity in treatment between employees in the public sector and those in the private sector. In the Italian private sector, under the least favourable collective agreements, pay is stopped for the first three days of absence, with the Istituto Nazionale per la Previdenza Sociale the national welfare body for the private sector taking over from the fourth day; furthermore, under no collective agreement are workers deprived of their pay, or a substantial portion of it, beyond the third day.
The national measures described by the Honourable Member relate to rates of sick pay within the Italian public service. However, none of the labour law or health and safety directives referred to by the Honourable Member relate to sick pay, which is a competence of the Member States. Furthermore, this legislation does not address any differences in working conditions between workers in the public sector and workers in the private sector. They therefore, bear no relevance to sick pay. Moreover, the Treaty articles mentioned by the Honourable Member generally relate to EU policies and actions and, as such, are not applicable to national measures of the Member States.
I had to unwind the ball of yarn of the English wool and worsted industry, including all the details concerning the different stages of the manufacturing process: It took me a while before I learnt from a magazine published in London in Tilloch They referred to the way Spanish wool which also included Portuguese wool was classified: Primera or Refina R. Moreover, since conducting business ventures overseas back then was not without its risks, I had to acquaint myself with the idiom used in cargo and shipping insurance, learn about risk-assessment, shipping deadlines, storage conditions, bills of lading, types of merchant ships crossing the Atlantic, and so on.
But then there are also taxes and duties, customs procedures and the requirements of port authorities, the valuation of the bales in the Cocket, [5] goods lodged at the Custom House not yet dispatched -- all of this wrapped up in a language of its own, which has to be patiently disassembled, explored, digested, and then reassembled and fine-tuned in the translation process. In order to penetrate that language I had to resort to historical research once more. However, since the Revista de Estudos Anglo-Portugueses is aimed at a scholarly readership, it proved unnecessary to insist on the explanation of cultural or linguistic aspects that they are supposed to be already acquainted with.
Differences in style between early nineteenth-century and early twenty-first-century Portuguese are noticeable, but they do not make the text less intelligible. In any case, stylistic conventions should not pose a problem for all the scholars who are used to working with documents of that period. So I kept the footnotes to a minimum. The future publication of a book containing the complete correspondence of the Farrer family, this time aiming at a more general readership, will entail a different explanatory methodology, but not a different stylistic treatment.
Writing narratives of displacement and travel is in itself a translational act, where the author is always seeking to translate into his mother tongue the manifestations of the culture of the other. In the process, the translator is forced to question his identity, values and the representations of his own nation and people, especially if the original text is non-fictional and therefore stakes a claim to the immediacy and truthfulness of the experience. The translator thus has to achieve a tour-de-force in bridging all three gaps and rendering the text accessible to the contemporary reader.
However, the meanings in the target text will always have but a spectral relation with the ones in the source text: This distance between the source and target texts becomes more difficult to span when historical time — fissured as it has been, in this particular case, over these past two centuries by sudden ruptures and discontinuities — keeps eroding the paths that could render the source text recognisable to the reader: Brewster, London, New Left Books. Cronin, Michael Across the Lines: Maxwell, Kenneth Conflicts and Conspiracies: Brazil and Portugal, , London, Routledge.
Tilloch, Alexander The Philosophical Magazine: Records of the Exchequer: Farrer and another v Hutchinson and others. Paris, ; Joaquim Ferreira de Freitas. London, Richard and Arthur Taylor, He is also the director of studies of postgraduate programmes in ELT and translation. He has also participated in several European-funded projects related to teacher training and computer-assisted language learning. Articles on aspects of translation studies have appeared in academic journals and edited volumes.
Undoubtedly, individuals contribute to the construction of social identities and society in turn is influential in forming personal identities. Translation sociology has already become one of the in-vogue research interests and areas in both Translation and Interpreting Studies TS and Sociology, giving way to understanding and interpreting both old issues in innovative ways and new ones arising from the nature of the diverse sociopolitical and cultural world today.
The interdisciplinary nature of research in this area has the potential to encourage scholars to carry out investigations into, inter alia, the interface between self, groups, and society with respect to translational issues, concerns and practices. As the roles translators play vary based on contextual factors, translators can and do have multiple identities including personal, social, and professional identities. It goes without saying that sociology, and specifically identity, which has been mostly neglected in translator training, can provide important insights if we reflect on the myriad interfaces between training, trainers, trainees, translators and society from diverse standpoints.
Clearly, the recent sociological turn in TS has encouraged both scholars and practitioners to explore the relationship between the agents involved in the translation process, product and function and to acknowledge the complexities and subtleties of these relationships, which in turn, has the potential to influence the production and reception of translations.
The same applies to translator training as it includes process, product, and function and can be looked at from the viewpoint of one or more of these elements. The sociology of translators and the sociology of translating appear to be tightly interrelated since, translators, as hands-on agents with their own beliefs, interests, and individualities, play a fundamental part in the translation process, which, together with the feedback they receive from translation users, affect and shape their concept of themselves.
It follows, then, that sociological and psychological aspects of translation are closely associated: Furthermore, from a Bourdiusian perspective, translators are always in a sway between their own habitus, comprising dispositions and mental structures resulting from their past experiences, and the norms and structures present in the field of translation and other fields encompassing it. This said, translators are agents and subjects within different social spheres, one of which is that of translation.
Bourdieu presents a full definition of habitus as a:. System of lasting, transposable dispositions which, integrating past experiences, functions at every moment as a matrix of perceptions, appreciations, and actions and makes possible the achievement of infinitely diversified tasks, thanks to analogical transfers of schemes permitting the solution of similarly shape problems, and thanks to the unceasing corrections of the results obtained dialectically produced by those results.
Finally, we will present and analyze the results of a survey conducted on Iranian and Italian undergraduate trainee translators to see how different aspects of their identities are correlated. We are hopeful that the findings of this study will have implications, inter alia, for training translators because identity is a key concept in teaching and learning and in enhancing their quality. This general distinction, arising from socialization practices, between Western individualistic societies and Eastern collectivist societies has also been documented by other scholars such as Singelis , Johnson , Bengston et al.
And how do Iranian and Italian trainee translators differ in terms of their identity? Iranian undergraduate trainee translators tend to have well-developed interdependent identities whereas Italian undergraduates tend to have well-developed self-dependent identities. Iranian and Italian trainee translators differ in terms of their sense of their own identity. We shall begin by defining different types of identity. Personal, individual, group, collective, gender, national, linguistic, cultural, and professional are probably the most established terms with which we refer to identity.
Interestingly, this way of defining identity closely resembles the definition of culture, foregrounding the proximity of the two concepts. Both culture and identity find realization in what they are not referring to ; in excluding and in contrast with others.
Identity has both individual and collective manifestations. In other words, individuals have their own identity, which distinguishes them from other individuals while individuals are members of social groups which are different from other groups. The distinction becomes more significant when we note that societies vary in the degree to which they are more individualist or collectivist. It follows that educational practices should take these differences into consideration. Camilleri and Malewska-Peyre Self carries various identities depending on the given situation where certain social roles are performed.
This implies that in social interactions, only parts of an individual's identity are involved in any given situation Stets and Burke An immediate implication of this view of translator training as a series of social situations is that trainee translators construct their identities in the educational situations they experience. As mentioned previously, a feature that makes research into identity fascinating yet demanding is the fact that this concept lies at the interface of sociology and psychology, two huge and influential sciences. It is also a reason why teaching is such a complex endeavor.
Similarly, translation is both a social and a psychological endeavor. The three types of identities explored in this study need to be defined here. Personal identity can be explained simply as how we define ourselves. Social identity, according to Tajfel cited in Ashmore, Jussim and Wilder Although Bourdieu himself does not seem to have explicitly defined identity, scholars have investigated this concept based on his theories. The dispositional, collective, and reflexive components represent personal, social, and professional identities.
Similarly, as Cressman points out, the interactions between actors in networks define their identity and because actors can at the same time belong to different networks and depending on the way these interact, their identities can vary. Therefore, in both theories we can consider multiple identities for translators and trainee translators. A similar study was carried out by Dionysios Kapsaskis As an example of how the professional identity of translators is influenced by industrial changes, Kapaskis On the other hand, there are studies that have gone the other way round, namely, they have probed the influence of translation on communities, norms, and identities of different types.
However, such studies are beyond the scope and the primary aims of the present article. She merges ANT with ethnography in order to trace each stage in the translation process of a number of case-studies of literary works. For Bourdieu, realism takes the real to be relational. This relationality is, for instance, visible in the relations between the different types of capital that Bourdieu speaks of, as well as in the interconnectedness of his concepts of habitus, capital, doxa, and illusio.
A major argument of her research is that. They emphasize the role of socialization in the construction of habitus, which together with the capital trainee translators can gain, are both part of, and influential in, their specialization in the field of translator training. His structuralist orientation, reflected in his practice theory and related concepts of agency, field, habitus , capital , doxa and illusio , leaves little doubt of the relevance of his ideas to the sociological analysis of identity, given that, as social agents, individuals work to create social structures which construct their identity in return.
Based on this structure, habitus creates beliefs, practices, and feelings and it is structured by existing conditions Grenfell Habitus, as mentioned above, operates along with other factors. For what we know as practice, Bourdieu presents an equation as follows: Habitus helps us shape our perspective towards the social world in a rather revolutionary way. By the same token, Stets and Burke We must go back and forth and understand how social structure is the accomplishment of actors, but also how actors always act within the social structure they create.
In this game, individuals, groups and institutions compete for better positions. Social agents learn the rules of the game gradually. They are only equipped with their own points of view. They take time to develop and they are never perfect. ANT has undergone some modifications: The main tenet of the social constructivism paradigm is the construction of knowledge through social interactions, including those in classrooms, hence the significance of collaboration and group work.
Thus, it can be argued that social constructivism, and by extension ANT, favors a collective approach to identity and its construction due to its concepts of network and translation. The central notion of an actor or agent or actant is understood to include both human and nonhuman agents: The network has no centre, all the elements are interdependent. Important roles are played by knowledge systems and by economic factors, as well as by people and by technical aids. Causality is not unidirectional: The theory distinguishes various kinds of relation between the nodes of a network […].
The interaction between agents or actants is called translation , a concept which ANT borrows from Michel Serres, as Barry Intermediaries do not affect the forces and meanings they are to transfer but mediators can modify them Latour, Thus, the identity of actants is dependent on their roles as mediator or intermediary, which can also change into each other.
Most theories are developed by theorists through the evaluation of previous theories and approaches. Bourdieusian approaches tend to reduce the agent to the translator, and only consider agency from the individualistic perspective Buzelin Starting from a general assumption of the existence of distinctions between Western and Eastern identities, we conducted an identity survey of Iranian and Italian undergraduate trainee translators, to test our hypotheses and to see to what extent the findings would fall within Bourdieu and ANT theories.
Additionally, the correlation between personal, social and professional identities among students was briefly examined. A total of trainee translators participated in our survey: The students were from four Iranian and four Italian universities: The age and gender distribution of the two groups of students are given in Tables 1 and 2 below. AIQ-IV is a questionnaire that measures identity orientation in the four aspects of personal, relational, social and collective identities.
In the original AIQ-IV questionnaire, there are 10 special items that are not scored on scales, two of which were included in our modified questionnaire. The research population was provided with the online questionnaire with an extended time period within which to respond and the responses were recorded both separately for each respondent and in a summary of all responses.
To help our analysis, the responses of Iranian and Italian students were recorded separately. Then, the total mean scores were compared and interpreted. Additionally, based on the total scores of the responses to each item, items that showed marked distinctions among the two groups of students were singled out as potential indicators of a number of meaningful and enlightening contrasts. Comparing the mean values for all items, the items whose mean scores showed a certain variation were identified and marked for this purpose. The procedure was as follows: The resultant criterion values were.
Finally, a microanalysis of identity scores based on three age groups of 19 or younger, male , and years old was carried out in order to find out more about the correlation of the identity aspects. Figure 1 compares Iranian and Italian undergraduate translator trainees in three aspects of their identities. A Comparison of trainee translators' three identity aspects based on mean Likert scale values. As Figure 1 shows, the Iranian and Italian students surveyed in this study, show a contrast in terms of their personal and social identities where the former tend to have a stronger social identity and the latter a more marked sense of personal identity.
This implies that Italian students are more inclined towards individualism and self-dependence while Iranian students prefer interdependence; a difference that may reflect overall differences between Iranian and Italian, or Eastern and Western, societies. As for the correlation between personal and social identities with professional identity, no meaningful correlation was observed, indicating that either there are more factors that have to be taken into account or some complementary data is required.
We stated above that a special analysis was carried out of those items which produced significantly different based on the overall scores between Iranians and Italians. The following items were selected for further interpretation in each aspect of identity. My personal values and moral standards Item 7: Places where I live or where I was raised. A comparison of personal identity marked items using mean Liker scale values. The Iranian students' score was significantly higher than their Italian counterparts in Item 1 but lower in Item 7, which might indicate that although Iranian students display a somewhat more social and less personal identity orientation, they might care more their values and morality issues.
On the other hand Italian students felt more intensely and emotionally about their living environments. A comparison of social identity marked items using mean Likert scale values. The results shown in Figure 3 imply that Italians are less concerned about their social popularity. Popularity, as social capital, is a way to earn symbolic capital, which in turn can be arguably converted into other types of capital, particularly cultural capital. There were two items identified as marked with respect to professional identity, which are listed below:.
Being considered a reliable and organized co-worker Item My future job despite its difficulties and low income. A comparison of professional identity marked items using mean Likert scale values. Although Italian students showed a higher propensity for individual work, they seem to value professional qualities when working with other people to a higher extent, which is indicated in Item 23; they consider it more important to be valuable co-workers through being reliable and organized. Being reliable is a highly interpersonal attribute while being organized tends to be a personal characteristic yet with palpable outcomes for the people around us.
Furthermore, in reference to Item 24, Italian students seemed to consider their future job much more important than Iranian students, a result which could imply two things: Overall, in the majority of the professional identity items, the Italian students demonstrated a stronger orientation, which may indicate that they generally have a better image of their field-related abilities and prospects for developing their careers in translation.
As a final step in this survey, we explored the correlation between personal and social identity aspects on the one hand with professional identity on the other. To this end, three age groups of trainee translators were compared in terms of their mean identity scores. Figure 5 and Figure 6 display the findings, indicating a chiefly positive correlation between the three identity aspects in the age groups analyzed — except for Italian students of 19 years or younger.
Another finding was that because the comparison of the mean scores of personal and social identities in these three age groups did not differ significantly across the two national groups, we can conclude that the excluded age group, female students aged , had a significant influence on the overall identity variation between Iranian and Italian students. The different items of the questionnaire, as well as the identity aspects it addressed, were related to the concepts discussed in the sociological theories.
The results of our empirical analysis point to a stronger social identity and habitus for Iranian students and a stronger personal and professional identity orientation and habitus on the part of the Italian students; a result which suggests that social activities in translator training may be particularly suitable in an Iranian context, while personal activities maybe more suitable when training translators in an Italian context.
In addition, we found a predominantly positive correlation between personal and social identities with professional identity among the age groups we decided to study for the purpose of correlation analysis. With reference to our research questions, we are now in a position to draw some conclusions: An implication of this study in translator training might be that once we understand that different societies have different conceptions of identity as well as various identities and identity construction patterns — for example, the general distinction between individualistic Western and the social Eastern identity — then our training priorities will differ, with implications for our translation curricula, pedagogies and teaching methods.
Additionally, the types of power distribution observed in the two theories have clear implications for the description of educational practices, including translator training. Introducing the two sociologies into the classroom allows learners to experience different identity constructions, which is recommended today. We would like to extend our deep gratitude to Prof.
Marcello Soffritti and Prof. Christopher Rundle for their invaluable help with the project this study was part of. We would also like to thank Prof. Silvia Bernardini for her constructive comments on a draft of this manuscript. Our heartfelt thanks also go to all the Italian and Iranian colleagues who helped with the distribution of our survey as well as the survey participants.
These items describe different aspects of identity. Please read each item carefully and consider how it applies to you. The full scale is:. Not important to my sense of who I am 1 2 3 4 5 Extremely important to my sense of who I am. Journal of International Studies Bourdieu, Pierre Outline of a theory of practice , trans.
Nice, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre In other words: Essays towards a reflexive sociology , trans. Measurement Instrument Database for the Social Science, www. Grenfell, Michael ed Pierre Bourdieu: Empowerment from Theory to Practice , Manchester, St. Latour, Bruno Reassembling the social: Bartrina eds , Oxon, Routledge: Heine, Toshio Yamagishi, and Tatsuya Kameda eds.
Snel Trampus, Rita D. After completing his MA in Translation Studies at Shahid Beheshti University, he started his translator training career in and has ever since taught undergraduate translation courses mainly at Arak University, where he got his BA in English Translation in He attended the University of Bologna once as a PhD student in , and another time as a doctoral visiting student in Starting from the definitions of culture, law, technology as well as legal and technical culture respectively, the aim of this paper is to point out the different degrees of cultural specificity in law and technology and in legal and technical language and texts.
The paper will also show to what extend the differences within the various dimensions of cultural specificity lead to differences in methods and procedures of translation. Ausgehend von den Definitionen von Kultur, Recht und Technik einerseits sowie von Rechts- und Technikkultur andererseits wird in diesem Beitrag der unterschiedliche Grad von Kulturspezifik in Recht und Technik und in ihren sprachlich-textuellen Manifestationen herausgearbeitet.
Kulturspezifik, Rechtssprache, technische Sprache, cultural specificity, legal language, technical language. Ziel des Beitrags ist es zum einen, den unterschiedlichen Grad der Kulturspezifik in Recht und Technik und ihren sprachlich-textuellen Manifestationen herauszuarbeiten. Rechtliche Regeln werden, wie von Marschelke Nutzung einerseits bestimmte Voraussetzungen mitbringen muss, dessen Erfordernissen aber andererseits auch bei der Gestaltung der Technik Rechnung zu tragen ist. Recht und die damit verbundene Kultur sind m. Bei qualitativer Betrachtung stellt sich dann heraus, dass Technikkultur im Korpus nur mit den Termini Stiftung und Verein verbunden ist.
Welche kulturspezifischen Unterschiede bestehen zwischen Recht und Technik auf der sprachlichen und der textuellen Ebene? Welche Unterschiede zwischen Recht und Technik wirken sich in besonderer Weise auf die kulturspezifischen Unterschiede aus? Rechtssprache ist in erster Linie eine Institutionensprache Busse Diese erfordert eine doppelte rechtlich-sprachliche Abstraktion. Civil Law - vs. Nur in mehrsprachigen nationalen Rechtsordnungen Beisp.: Schweizer Recht und in supranationalen Rechtsordnungen Beisp.: In der Technik dagegen sind es tendenziell ein und dieselben Begriffe, die durch unterschiedliche Benennungen zum Ausdruck gebracht werden.
Bei der Entwicklung der technischen Terminologien gibt es jedoch, wie von Arntz Dennoch gibt es auch in der Technik Bereiche, in denen die Terminologie nicht systematisch genormt ist, so die Kfz-Technik Arntz Definitionen sind dabei nicht nur ein Recht-, sondern auch ein Technik-Thema, was anhand der nationalen und internationalen Normung sichtbar wird z. Auch gibt es zahlreiche Terminologieportale mit genormter Technik-Terminologie z. Im Recht ist es, v. So gibt es beispielsweise von den das Ermittlungs- und das Zwischenverfahren des italienischen Strafprozesses kennzeichnenden neun Textsorten nur drei, die eine Entsprechung in den vergleichbaren Abschnitten des deutschen Strafprozesses haben:.
Gliederungskonventionen in deutschen und italienischen Gesetzestexten. Schweizer Recht oder supranationalen Rechtsordnung Beisp.: Eine wichtige Rolle spielen in diesem Zusammenhang Definitionen vgl. Diese sind allerdings einerseits nicht zu jedem Terminus oder Begriff vorhanden. Dies ist, wie von Reinart Diese kann in der Technik auch die Inhaltsbestandteile bzw.
Apply the parking brake firmly. Shift the automatic transaxle to Park or manual transaxle to Neutral. Da Ausgangs- und Zielkultur hier allerdings zusammenfallen, kann allenfalls von einer Anpassung an Sprachtraditionen die Rede sein. Die sich hier manifestierenden Besonderheiten der Rechtssprache als Fachsprache vgl. Der Beitrag basiert auf einem Vortrag, den ich dort am Ein internationales Handbuch zur Fachsprachenforschung und Terminologiewissenschaft , 2. Hoffmann, Lothar Kommunikationsmittel Fachsprache. Le-Hong, Kai und Peter A. Traduction de textes juridiques: Patti, Salvatore a cura di Codice Civile Italiano.
Perspectives for the New Millenium. Akten des Symposiums Mannheim, 3. Tilch, Horst und Frank Arloth Hrsg. Bilder und audiovisuelle Materialien in der Technik generell eine wichtige Rolle spielen Arntz Her other research areas include legal language, notably notarial language, didactics of specialised translation, terminography and lexicography. Eva Wiesmann also works als a freelance legal translator and lexicographer. Political opinion articles as an ideologically-loaded type of political discourse are largely produced to serve the society to which they belong.
When translated, they could be manipulated to meet the socio-political needs of the target society. Translation Studies scholars have adopted a variety of critical approaches and methodologies to account for such manipulations, inspired by the principles of Critical Discourse Analysis CDA and under the critical translation movement. To achieve this objective, a collection of 31 English opinion articles, along with their corresponding Persian translations, are analyzed.
At the textual level, however, some modifications are suggested. Critical Discourse Analysis, CDA, ideological square, manipulation, news translation, political discourse, opinion articles. Regardless of their methodology, all the scholars have unanimously agreed that the political context in which the target text TT is produced leads the trans-editor s [1] to manipulate the TT. Manipulation is a term originally concerned with literary translation and was first used by the scholars of the Manipulation School e.
Some scholars consider it as translation acts by means of which linguistic and cultural barriers are transcended and communication is facilitated e. Therefore, manipulation has also been considered a filter through which a specific representation of ST is promoted e.
The current study considers manipulation from the latter perspective. The question is, which analytical framework can serve to investigate manipulation in translation from this perspective? First, the appropriateness of the framework will be argued. Then, we will show how the framework links with Translation Studies and serves as a model for investigating manipulation in political discourse translation through the analysis of 31 Persian translations of English opinion articles.
Since the ideological turn in Translation Studies, ideological and political factors have drawn the attention of translation scholars to the study of translation context. That is, CDA and TS share the idea that textual features should not be interpreted without considering the ideological context of text production and reception. Ietcu-Fairclough points out that translators work under certain socio-political conventions and restrictions which serve the wider values and ideologies of power holders in society.
Thus, the strategies employed by translators are aimed at the production of a text in line with set values. This is even more significant when it comes to political discourse translation, in general, and opinion articles, in particular. Political opinion articles, as opposed to hard news articles, are believed to be significantly loaded with ideologies Bell ; van Dijk As van Dijk That is, they are consistent with the beliefs and values of the dominant socio-political frameworks of the institutions themselves and the wider society to which they belong Hodge and Kress, Likewise, Vuorinen and Darwish maintain that translation in news agencies is influenced by institutional policies and ideologies to justify and control actions and their outcomes.
Therefore, translators are not the only people who decide on the translation; their work is edited by others such as senior translators, editors and the chief editor Hursti ; Bielsa Over the past few years, translation scholars have attempted to apply CDA in their studies to look at the influence of such conditions on news translation e. It should be noted that these studies are flawed for two reasons. Second, others are case studies which analyse a single article e. Therefore, there is a need for a study with a broader set of data which goes beyond mere lexical analysis.
The portrayal of the conflicts between Iran and the Western world have also been among the points of interest in investigating the influence of ideology on the news language. They argue that the translation strategies used are realized through the purposeful application of linguistic expressions both at lexical and grammatical level or non-linguistic elements such as images, photos, and graphic drawings.
Sanatifar and Jalalian Daghigh , investigate, from a socionarrative perspective, how the Iranian media, through translation, directed the public perception of the social and political realities about its nuclear program through reframing as it was already framed in the Western media. Unlike Khanjan et al. Other studies have compared Western news texts in English with Iranian-Persian texts covering the same topic.
The results of their study show that the British media delegitimized the Iranian nuclear program, whereas the Iranian media portrayed it positively. Their study highlights a few points. First, they have gone beyond mere analysis of lexical choices by taking transitivity procedures, namely nominalization, and passivization, into account. Second, by looking at the domestic media, which support government policies, and by comparing it with the Western media, they shed light on socio-political factors, which based on CDA, explain different uses of language by the media.
Nevertheless, without denying the merit of these studies, it is noticeable that by merely looking at parallel texts produced in two different contexts, it is not possible to uncover manipulations carried out by news trans-editors. At the macro level is the society which is concerned with power relationships at the level of local interlocutors and global societal structures. In his approach, social power is understood as a means of controlling the mind and action of groups and people.
At the micro level is discourse, which refers to various discourse structures language encapsulating ideologies. Van Dijk points out that the meaning of the text is embedded in the discourse by language producers, and as such, it exists and is represented in their minds. He characterizes it as a polarization of Us and Them through which the positive and negative features of in-group Us and out-group Them are de emphasized by applying 24 discourse structures. That is, the polarization between Us and Them is manifested via all linguistic dimensions of a text, which are interpreted as one of the following overall strategies:.
Besides the 24 discourse structures identified by van Dijk , ideology may be represented in the text via syntactic features of language as well. Since van Dijk has not included these features in his framework, the linguistic toolkits which are set forth by Hodge and Kress , and Fowler and Fairclough , i. In the following, a background of Iranian media policies and what forms the ideological Us and Them in the country is provided.
In , with the Islamic revolution in Iran, a referendum was held and the Islamic Republic of Iran as the socio-political system of the country was officially recognized. Accordingly, in the same year, a new constitution was ratified to adjust the rules and norms to the newly-established system. In addition, having the support of the European powers, specifically the UK, the USA has attempted to stop the country from being a nuclear power in the region Hastedt The foreign policy of Iran is also reflected in its constitution.
On the one hand, Article 56 of Chapter 8 of the Iranian constitution categorizes a number of countries, mainly the U. A and Israel, as hostile governments. These points have also been stressed in Iranian media law. Chapter 4 of the law bans several cases, among which are those that noticeably. Chapter 2 of the law states the missions of the media. Among the missions described in this chapter are those that. The data collection began by looking at the target text published on the Iranian news website Diplomacy-e-Irani Iranian Diplomacy. A total of 31 Persian news opinion articles, which were all translated from English into Persian, were obtained from the archive of the news website within a period of 3 months, dated from April 1, , to June 30, In fact, more and more ideologically-loaded articles were then being published.
Mic, Executive Magazine, and The Atlantic. After identifying the ideological significance of the source texts see Figure 2 , through comparing the source ST and target text TT , the ideological mismatches are described, categorized and evaluated. Analysis of the source text per se suggests that the ST representations can be categorized into four major patterns as follows:. In the following section, the results obtained from comparing the ST and the TT are presented. The given examples reflect the manipulation patterns in Persian translation of the opinion articles which are based on various procedures.
Since the inclusion of all procedures falls beyond the scope of the study, the complete list of the procedures is separately provided in Appendix A Jalalian The best means of disarming Iran is to insist on a simple and basic redline […] Takeyh, Comparison of the ST and the TT shows some mismatches, which could be explained in terms of ideological manipulations. In fact, by categorizing a particular group who favor the Islamic Republic the political regime , the ST author refers to a minority who supports the nuclear program, but this is generalized to Iranians, as a case of creating populism in the TT.
This is a change of perspective which not only filters a negative depiction of Iran, but also, may represent the West negatively; thus, a target reader may interpret this as stopping a program which could be the right of a nation. Therefore, in all the cases discussed above, there is an attempt by the trans-editor s to block the negative representations of the in-group US in the TT. The procedures of blocking are listed and explained in Appendix A.
It would have to agree to completely open all Iranian nuclear facilities to regular inspections by the IAEA which has thus far refused to do so Purzycki, First Iran would give permission to the inspectors to enter all its nuclear sites. Some information may remain implicit, as it may be shared knowledge with the recipients and inferred from context. However, there are other reasons for implicitation. For example, for cultural purposes such as politeness, an unacceptable expression might become implicit. In addition, political motivations may lead an author to leave an expression implicit van Dijk, While negative features of an in-group may remain implicit or mitigated through euphemism, the negative features of an out-group may be explicated van Dijk, However, this is omitted in the TT.
As such, implicitation is used to demote the negative representation of the in-group in the TT. At the last round of talks, in February in Kazakhstan, the United States and five otherworld powers offered Tehran modest concessions, including softening limits on trade using gold and other precious metals, and easing some restrictions on petrochemicalexports, if the Iranians agreed to halt production of medium-enriched uranium. The Iranians did not accept the offer Ritcher Disclaimer is a combination of positive self-representation and negative other-representation and saves face by emphasizing the positive features of an in-group and representing an out-group negatively by focusing on their negative features.
In the above example, both positive representations of the out-group and negative representation of the in-group are expressed via disclaimer. In fact, the ST depicts the out-group positively by stating that a good offer from the United States is turned down by the in-group. However, it is blocked from entering the TT by complete omission. In fact, the negative representation of the in-group, as well as the positive representation of the out-group are both manipulated in the TT.
Groups and individuals might be addressed by neutral terms. Thus, a polarized term used to refer to an in-group positively and an out-group negatively is a marker of the ideology of a group towards its in-groups and out-groups van Dijk, In the above example, the author quotes what Ashton, the leader of the Western powers in negotiations, states on the proposal which has been given by the West.
As can be seen in the ST, this part of the text is a positive representation of the West and their proposal. This reveals that the trans-editors consider themselves to be members of the target society. As such, the positive representation of the Westerners is demoted by omitting some information. Based on my personal experience, Rowhani is a polite and open character Fischer Based on my personal experience, Rowhani is a polite man with open character.
In discourse, an actor can be described as a manifestation of a group ideology towards what they consider as in-group and out-group. Comparison of the ST and the TT shows no ideological manipulation. As a result, the positive representation of the in-group is preserved in the TT. Unlike outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he surrounds himself with very skilful and experienced diplomats Fischer His ongoing balanced policies in past posts indicate that he is a sophisticated person.
These translations are both in line with the meaning of the ST words. However, the addition of some positive representation in the TT, which does not exist in the ST, intensifies the already positive representation of Rowhani in the ST. Like the previous examples, this example represents the way DPR is manipulated. By applying certain procedures, the ST positive representation of the in-group is promoted in the TT. The procedures of promotion are explained in Appendix A. The discourse of counterfactuals warns about something that would happen as the result of the problem created by another group.
Comparison of the ST and the TT suggests that the negative representation of the out-group is transferred from the ST to the TT without any manipulation. Therefore, the negative representation of the out-group is preserved in the TT. In the above example, the author blames Obama for sending arms to Syria for the problem it may cause in the path toward a probable deal between Iran and the USA. However, it is worth mentioning the few ideological manipulations.
That is, the reader may imagine that the USA has sent heavy arms rather than small arms. As such, the negative representation of Obama and his policies are promoted in the TT. As stated earlier, the ST analysis suggests four patterns of representation. In total, 82 percent of the ST representations are in conflict with the cases which are stipulated in the Iranian media law.
As a result, it is far from expectation that the translators simply transfer the undesired representations to the TT intact. Table 2 summarizes the ST representations as manipulated in the TT. As the table displays, the undesired representations have been treated differently from the desired representations. The four identified strategies of manipulation and their percentages in translations. The first category is the undesired negative representation of the in-group. The second category is an undesirable positive representation of the out-group.
The third category is a desirable negative representation of the out-group. The last category is a desirable positive representation of the in-group. As the table reveals, while preserving does not exist in the first two groups, it is dominantly used in the last two groups DNR and DPR. This suggests that the trans-editors have preserved the positive representations of the in-groups and negative representations of the out-groups.
One may argue that preserving may not be a manipulative pattern. However, by comparing its use among the four categories of the ST representations, it can be concluded that preserving has been applied deliberately to highlight the desired representations. As stated earlier, translation is an act of recontextualization.
When a text is recontextualized, it is influenced by the contextual factors of the target society. Even though some transformations are unavoidable in the process of translation due to linguistic and cultural factors, the ones which are evident in this study cannot be interpreted as a result of constraints imposed by such related aspects. In fact, the data analysis suggests that the political discourse translators working at Iranian Diplomacy seem to have been restricted, among many, by the ideological factors governing the institution they work for.
The institution per se is part of the society in which certain values are shared. The state ideology of the Iranian government is a good example of such conditions. The Islamic revolution has resulted in forming a polarized categorization which has been reflected in both the constitution and the media law. This takes place through text producers who shape the discourse to meet the expectations of the institution they work for. In fact, text producers, being aware of the commission they have and guided by the factors underlying ideological square, produce a text which reflects the ideology of the powerholders through their discursive practices.
Analysis of the data shows that the ST consists of representations which conflict with the stance of the Iranian government toward the in-group Us and the out group Them. Through the manipulative procedures, the undesired and desired representations are formed into representations which recreate a new discourse for the target text audience. The purpose of this appears to ensure that the target text is in accordance with the values and ideology of the target society. The proposed CDA-based model for the analysis of manipulation in political discourse translation. The model which is developed through modifications to the originally monolingual CDA of van Dijk tends to focus on the ideological square in the context of the target society.
The ideology of the target society power holders, which has roots in their stance toward the conflicts with foreign countries, is reflected in the TT discourse through manipulation strategies. It appears that the square can accommodate manipulation in the bilingual context of political discourse translation.
However, applying this to translation needs some modification. As such, it is concluded that the trans-editors tend to manipulate the ST representations based on Figure 3 illustration. Illustration of the four identified strategies to investigate manipulation in political discourse translation. As the figure reveals, trans-editors tend to positively represent their own group Us and negatively represent the other group Them. The strategies, except for preserving, are implemented through applying some manipulative procedures which are explained in Appendix A. The linguistic toolkits provided by van Dijk and the ones provided and shared among other CDA models, including Fairclough, Hodge and Kress, and Fowler, seem to be not enough in explaining all the manipulation procedures, most probably due to their monolingual nature of analysis.
Therefore, by taking a descriptive-explanatory approach, the study has attempted to investigate the ones which are not explained by CDA see Appendix A. The proposed model conceptualizes the important topic of manipulation in mediation of ideology as performed by political discourse translators.