The main takeaways
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an independent non-governmental organisation formed by 168 national standardisation bodies. ISO standards make our everyday life safer, more predictable, and more sustainable.
Did you know that contrary to many organisations' acronyms, ISO always stays ISO in all languages? The founding fathers also left their standardisation fingerprint on the body's name, deciding that ISO will be used as the only acronym worldwide, deriving its name from the Greek “ ἴσος " - (isos), meaning equal. Whatever the country, whatever the language, ISO standards are the same all over the world.
The ISO Technical Committee 37 (TC 37) develops standards in the area of language and terminology, where the EU institutions act as a liaison organisation (consultative body without voting rights), with the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Court of Justice represented by their respective interpretation and translation services. Once a year the members of various working groups at TC 37 meet at an annual meeting. After 3 years of COVID, finally this year the event came to Brussels and was co-hosted by the European Commission, the European Parliament and the NBN (Belgian standardisation body). To mark the importance of the event, participants were welcomed by EP Vice-President Marc Angel and Commissioner Johannes Hahn, as well as by the Directors-General of DGs SCIC (European Commission) and LINC (European Parliament).
Incidentally, the meeting in Brussels marked the 10th anniversary of the EU institutions' involvement in ISO/TC 37. It all started with the desire to update the standards for interpreting booths and equipment. Nowadays, we are witnessing rapid developments in remote and hybrid communication, as well as in language processing technologies and AI based solutions, including post-event and real-time speech recognition. Playing an active role in the ISO community helps influence these processes, promote improved working methods, ensure health and safety, and fair competition in tendering procedures.
Currently, nine SCIC experts represent the Commission in various working groups of the TC 37, including 4 active and 2 former interpreters.
One of them currently acts as convenor of the Working Group 3 (Facilities and Equipment for Interpreting Services). Among the files addressed at the moment, there is a new family of standards on the interpreters' working environment (ISO 17651). Another DG SCIC expert acts as Project Leader for this file. This series of standards consists of three “Parts": permanent booths, mobile booths, and interpreting hubs. The first two will update the current existing standards on these subjects (ISO 2603 and ISO 4043), while interpreting hubs will be standardised for the first time – all in order to reflect the impact and requirements of virtual and hybrid meetings.
During the Annual Meeting, experts agreed that the standard on interpreting hubs needs to be elaborated further, while Part 1 on permanent booths and Part 2 on mobile booths can proceed to the final approval stage before publication. In addition, the revision of the ISO 20109 standard on interpreting equipment is now close to being finalised too. It mainly consists of a clearer definition of the technical needs for distant participation and remote interpreting. Finally, sign language interpreting requirements will find their home in the new Part 4 of the aforementioned series on the interpreters' working environment standards.
Other working groups achieved significant progress with the standards on community interpreting and the relevant training programmes. These are important steps in support of people facing language barriers while seeking access to public services, and for those interpreters who make this access possible.
This successful event helped us showcase the EU's role in promoting multilingualism, as well as achieve good progress with files relevant to the worldwide interpreting community.