Eurocrats’ Technospeak Translates to Euroconfusion

Most people know them as sheep. Some European Union documents call them “grain-eating units.”

Machines generally known as buses are “intermodal transport systems” for Eurocrats.

In Eurospeak, the gums of your mouth are “mucous membranes of the oral cavity.”

There is no end to the jargon of the European Commission, which runs the EU’s day-to-day affairs, and other European institutions.

Every day Eurocrats toss the word salad, add a little sauce and serve copious texts brimming with such horrors as “horizontal lending instruments,” “diagonal cumulations” and “subsidiarity.”

Some Eurobabble is downright nonsensical. A recent text spoke of “semen from male bovine animals”--also known as bull semen.

Or how about this, from a paper on ways to streamline EU decision-making: “Does the presidency’s approach of applying objective criteria to define a list of provisions for which unanimity would remain the rule provide a suitable basis for further examination of a list of provisions as possible candidates for QMV on the basis of their link to the functioning of the internal market, bearing in mind also the possibility of phasing in QMV gradually over time?”

Such jargon is not limited to internal documents. It pours forth in daily press releases and background papers for the 1,000 or so accredited journalists in Brussels.

A recent news release began as follows:

“The European Commission is preparing the revision of its 1986 Notice on agreements of minor importance which are not caught by the prohibition on cartels laid down in Art. 85 (1) of the EU treaty. The Commission considers unjustifiable to reserve the benefits of the ‘de minimis’ notice only to small and medium-sized enterprises and proposes to delete the parties turnover criterion.”

Murky prose like that has taken on such proportions that the EU’s translation service itself has begun to fight back.

Recently, it issued a booklet with tips on clear, crisp language. It warns, “Too much abstract language may make your reader suspect that something real and unpalatable is being wrapped up in verbiage.”

That is true, officials say, but beyond that the technical nature of EU affairs--farm subsidies, single currency criteria, trade tariffs--inevitably breeds a technical vernacular.

“There is a need for some of our terminology,” says Emma Wagner of the EU translation service.

“I, for one, don’t understand many terms in soccer and other sports. And no one will change them for me.”

Vice President Al Gore led a campaign in the United States to free Americans from officialdom using unduly complicated language. As of Oct. 1, federal documents were supposed to be gobbledygook-free.

The EU’s “Fight the Fog” initiative has been welcomed by the “Plain English Campaign,” a British lobby headed by Chrissie Maher.

A social worker, she launched her campaign in 1979 when two pensioners froze to death because they did not understand an application form for a heating subsidy.

They died of cold, she said, “because of unfamiliar words that had no place in public information.”

The EU booklet stresses that documents are read by EU insiders, outside specialists and the public. “Always bear in mind the people you are writing for [and] don’t overestimate their knowledge, interest or patience.”