BACKGROUND
The Translation and Revision Centre (TRC) was initially functioning as a National Documentation Centre and was established in 1997 within the Ministry of Justice. One year later, with the assistance and support of the Technical Assistance Information Exchange Unit (TAIEX) of the European Commission, a Translation Bureau was established at that Centre.
The main task of the Central Translation Bureau and the National Documentation Centre was to prepare an official translation of the acquis communautaire.
The first step undertaken by the Translation Bureau was to collect and construct in the form of database all translations of European Union (EU) legislative acts existing by that time, which were at the disposal of various ministries and other governmental institutions.
With the progress of the negotiations concerning Bulgaria’s EU accession, it became increasingly necessary to harmonise Bulgarian legislation with acquis communautaire. For that reason in 2001, by Decree No 105/25.04.2001 of the Council of Ministers, the functions of the Central Translation Bureau and the National Documentation Centre were united and delegated to the newly established Translation and Revision Centre, subordinated to the Minister of State Administration and Administrative Reform.
MANDATE AND MISSION
Initially the Translation and Revision Centre’s mandate and mission were to meet effectively and professionally the requirements concerning the translation of the normative documents in the course of negotiations between Bulgaria and the European Union, by organising and coordinating:
• the translation of:
– the EU acquis into Bulgarian;
– Bulgarian normative acts into the Community languages;
– European law acts into Bulgarian for the needs of the state administration.
• the revision of translated normative acts in terms of:
– language;
– legal consistency;
– terminology;
• supply of information regarding the translated texts to various State administration authorities as well as dealing with terminology inquiries in order of consistency and uniform use of the established terminology during the translation of the acquis.
QUALITY ASSURANCE
The TRC policy is entirely directed towards the production and provision of high quality translations, which reflect with precision the content, the direction and the attitude of the original texts, respect unconditionally the literary norms of the Bulgarian language and apply uniform terminology and phraseology.
Such a quality level requires significant and constant efforts; for this reason all translations undergo linguistic, terminological and legal revision. At a later stage the terminology is agreed with experts from the relevant working group within the Coordination Council for Preparation of the Republic of Bulgaria for Accession to the European Union, currently the Council for European Affairs, pursuant to Decree No 105/25.04.2001 of the Council of Ministers.
