The 20th anniversary Conference of the European Commission Directorate General for Interpretation

On March 14 – 15, 2016 the European Commission Directorate General for Interpretation held the 20^th anniversary Conference for the universities that cooperate with the EU in the field of highly qualified interpreters training. The event was held in Brussels, in one of the European Commission main buildings.  Many interesting presentations were made at the conference; some of them were prepared by the European Commission and the European Parliament interpretation services delegates, and 3 of them – by the reputable interpretation schools delegates. The presentations were made by the Interpreting Department Director of the University of Geneva Faculty of Translation and Interpreting, ESIT (Paris High School of Interpreters and Translators) Director and also by Olga Egorova, the Director of the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation of Astrakhan State University. Professor Egorova spoke about the interpreter profession new paradigms in the 21st century, about the fact that nowadays an interpreter often happens to be an interdisciplinary specialist, for example, an interpreter and a translator, an interpreter and an engineer, an interpreter and a conference-manager, an interpreter and a press-attaché etc. The presentation was very lively and emotional and sparked the European Union senior officials’ interest; for instance, the European Parliament Directorate-General for Interpretation and Conferences expressed gratitude to Olga Egorova for her progressive attitude towards the future of the interpreter profession and emphasized that this strategy is of interest for the European Parliament.

For the whole history of this conference professor Egorova has been the only delegate from the Russian Federation universities, invited to participate in such a high-level forum. The European Commission Vice-president opened the conference, and only those universities and schools for interpreting and translation that are internationally certified and have proved the high quality level of their specialists training were the participants.