A single Europe: so far and yet so near?

Equally disconcerting is that the Community's history is one of compromise, backbiting, recrimination, petulance, grandstanding, infighting and ad hoc political and commercial alliances, many of them of short duration.

Presiding over these uneasy bedfellows is another layer of cumbersome, mutually incompatible bureaucracies in the shape of the European Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. Together with the European Court of Justice, this triumvirate churns out each year close on one million pages of rules, regulations, directives, drafts, position papers, court judgments and the like. These documents are duly translated into the nine Community languages so that bureaucrats in the 12 Member States can conveniently ignore them.

A Pat on the Back and a Kick Up the Derriere

The European Commission recently patted the EC Council of Ministers on the back for reaching final (or almost final) agreement on about 50 percent of the 279 measures identified in the 1985 White Paper as being essential to completion of the Single European Market by December 31, 1992.

Little matter that the vast majority of these measures relate to earth-shatteringly tedious items like the prevention of African swine fever, the prevention of African swine fever in Portugal, the prevention of African swine fever in Spain (note, three separate measures), permissible noise levels for tower cranes, the chemical properties of toys, and acceptable noise levels for hydraulic diggers.

Clearly, each of these measures is important, if it happens to impact on your sector of activity. That said, it is reliably reported that the IBMS, Unilevers and Siemens of this world are not losing too much sleep at the prospect of new Community measures such as these. Nor, for that matter, are they revamping corporate strategy to accommodate new rules on electro-medical implantable, non-automatic weighing machines, tire pressure gauges, protection of hotels against fire, lawn-mower noise, swine vesicular disease, boar meat, enzootic bovine leukosis, or brucellosis in small ruminants.

The Council of Ministers probably deserves the occasional pat on the back. But it also deserved-and got-a kick up the derriere in the form of a reminder from the Commission that the Member States, collectively, have failed to implement 90 percent of the EC Directives which should by now be national law. Of the 70 or so internal market directives which should now be in place throughout the Member States, only seven had been implemented by all 12 at the time of the Commission's review released last September.

It is probably unfair to single out Spain and Portugal for too much criticism-after all, they only joined three years ago and they are still digging themselves out from under the avalanche of 1,000 or so prior directives they automatically undertook to implement when they joined the Community.

As far as Greece is concerned, the Karamanlis Government rushed the country into the Community before being ousted by the Pasok Party (which, at the time, was assiduously anti-Community membership): In their anxiety to get in, they committed themselves to implementation deadlines that were totally unrealistic-and everybody knew it. They have been playing catch-up ever since.

The Greeks seemed to be hauled before the European Court of Justice every other week. But the Italians are the frontrunners in the non-compliance stakes. The European Court issues second rulings which-as one might expect-compel an offender to comply with a first ruling. Only tO such second rulings have been issued in the history of the Community. And every single one has been directed against Rome.

Europe: a Complex Mix of Governments

There are valid reasons for this. Europe is a complex beast, a strange admixture of monarchies and federal states. And many of the federal states have devolved power to their regions; Italy is a case in point. Thus, there are major statutory impediments which make it virtually impossible for Italy to comply with certain Directives. A 1975 Directive requires employers to consult and give adequate notice to workers they are dismissing en bloc. The European Court ruled again in 1985. It is now 1990, 15 years have elapsed since the Directive was issued, and Italy has still not complied.

It is not only the Mediterranean Member States which have a serious case of manana-ism. West Germany, which is often looked upon as "Mr. Clean" in the Community, has consistently turned a blind eye to the "butter ships"-vessels which sail from North German ports out into international waters for the sole purpose of offering cut-price duty-free butter.

UK's Compliance Carries a Hitch

And what of the United Kingdom? It may come as something of a shock to those who worship at the shrine of Our Lady of Bruges (as Madame Thatcher became not-so-affectionately known subsequent to her well-documented intransigence at a European Summit held in that fair city), but the United Kingdom has a pretty good record on compliance.

it is probably inappropriate to attribute Machiavellian cunning to anyone as simplistic as Mrs. Thatcher, but there is a crafty political ploy implicit in Britain's compliance record. Statistically, the United Kingdom has implemented 80 percent of the 1985 White Paper measures which have since been enacted into Community law. What does this prove? That the United Kingdom is a good European. Along with France, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have all implemented about the same percentage. The end result is that Britain can claim that it will not countenance discussion of further economic and monetary union until its fellow Member States have implemented-not simply approved, but implemented-those Community Directives which are still pending enactment into national law.

The plain fact is that the Rome Treaty is weak in that it only acknowledges central governments in the Community Member States and passes the buck to them, obliging them to translate EC legislation into national law. This is a running sore in the case of countries which are federal as opposed to unitary states. West Germany is a prime example, but Italy and Spain have also devolved extensive powers to their regional governments and these can flout EC law with a healthy dose of impunity because the Treaty simply doesn't bind them.

What all this says about commitment to the European ideal is another issue entirely. Charles de Gaulle used to complain that it was impossible to govern a country that produced 385 different cheeses.

The General should be living at this hour...

A Strategic Opportunity for Communicators

Why should any of the above observations be of more than passing interest to us as professional business communicators? For the very simple reason that, like it or not, the new Europe is a force to be reckoned with, And any communicator who professes to more than lip service to the notion of communication as a global discipline had better start getting his or her act together.

There is good news and there is bad news. The bad news is that, if you haven't done some serious planning to accommodate the changes that will be ushered in by what we choose to call "1992" (it really should be "1993 "), you really deserve to have egg all over your face. But the good news is that you still have time on your side: Many of the measures that are absolutely crucial to the business sector have yet to come up for formal discussion, let alone be submitted for ratification by the Council of Ministers and enactment into and implementation in Member State national law. If the track record on implementation is anything to go by, it will be 1997 or 1998 before some of the really tough issues genuinely start to bite.

As it happens, the changing European scene offers the communication profession a major opportunity. If, as most of us believe, the communication function should be accorded full strategic importance within today's corporate structures, then this is a heaven-sent opportunity to demonstrate that the communicator-in-house or otherwise-is the authority on a vital sector of corporate involvement. The communicator will always remain a second-rate corporate citizen until such time as he or she can persuade top management that the communicator's input is as relevant and authoritative as that of any other head of function within the corporation.

Language: The Ultimate Non-Tariff Barrier

From the corporate perspective, the Single European Market is a significant step in the right direction. Free movement of individuals, capital, goods and services within the 12 Member States of the European Community will undoubtedly create new business opportunities. And the removal of these major barriers to trade will impact favorably on the corporate bottom line of companies-provided they do their homework.

Completion of the internal European market is a bold and ambitious undertaking. As we have seen, however, it is dangerously naive to suppose that Europe will be transformed into a homogeneous "single" market on the stroke of midnight on December 31, 1992.

In one respect, at least, Europe will certainly not change overnight: the European Community's 320 million consumers will continue to communicate and do business in different languages.

For the foreseeable future, language will continue to be a formidable non-tariff barrier to transnational commerce.

Corporate success in the Europe of 1992 and beyond will depend more than ever before on an integrated approach to prompt, accurate and effective communication with highly differentiated national and local markets. To function effectively, companies must have access to proven on-the-ground expertise in all aspects of transnational language management.

Will it Play in Bradford, Bologna, Bordeaux and Baden-Baden?

Companies have learnt and will continue to learn to their cost that communicating for the global marketplace cannot be left to chance: The corporate message must be adapted to the sensibilities of each individual market.

William E. Simon, the former Secretary of the US Treasury, tells a delightful anecdote about the Texan who is in Rome on business. He finds his huge limo, complete with longhorns on the hood, sandwiched between two tiny Fiats. He inches forward and crushes the rear end of the Fiat in front of him; he inches back and smashes the headlights of the Fiat behind him. Then he pulls out into the passing traffic and gets side-swiped by a truck. A traffic cop who has seen the whole incident comes over and says, "Signore, where you gotta you license?" And the Texan says, Well, sire, I got my license in Dallas, Texas, but a Texas license sure as hell don't teach you how to drive in Rome."

The moral is self-evident.

Operating effectively in the Europe of the 1990s will depend even more than ever on an integrated approach to swift, accurate and effective host-language communication with highly differentiated national and local markets.

It is frequently claimed that "English is the language of business." There is some truth in this, much to the relief of UK and North American nationals, whose foreign language track record is, at best, abysmal. But English is not the language of commerce: Marketing, public relations, advertising, product specifications, legal and accounting documents, annual reports, and the like-all have to be communicated in the language of the country in which a company is operating. The same holds true for public procurement tenders, stock market flotation, Eurobond issues, subscription documents, merger, acquisition and takeover literature, and much more.

Inevitably, Europe 1992 has acted as a catalyst. The demand for linguistic expertise has intensified, but it is now coupled with a growing awareness that corporate needs cannot be met on a case-by-case basis. Accordingly, companies and institutions which operate within a pan-European or global framework now recognize the need for language services which have the integral structure, methodology and resources that not only guarantee accuracy, but also ensure local culture compatibility, rigid standards of quality control, cost-effectiveness, efficient delivery and high standards of protecting client confidentiality.

Sadly, there are only very few of these around.

The ability to communicate effectively is a skill of the highest order, even in one's own mother tongue. That skill is even more pronounced when a language frontier has to be crossed. The acid test for copy is no longer "how will it read in Bradford?" Instead, one has to ask "how will it read in Bordeaux, Bologna and Baden-Baden?" Failure to take this into account can cost money.

Ours is a complex discipline that faces new challenges in a radically changing business environment. Coping with foreign languages may appear inordinately difficult to those whose linguistic skills extend little beyond ordering a pizza, a couscous, a bratwurst or a steak au poivre. But it is a problem you are going to have to face, so you'd better start preparing yourselves now.

23 TIPS FOR TRANSLATING YOUR MESSAGE INTO ANOTHER LANGUAGE

Writing for transnational markets implies the acquisition of new skills and the shedding of old habits. A set of additional parameters has to be assimilated if a source text needs to be replicated for foreign-language markets with something approaching 100 percent accuracy.

Here are a few ground rules which may prove useful once you start preparing text which will have to be transposed into other languages, including "English" as used through, out Europe.

* When developing the language of origin, provision must be "built-in" for transposition into other languages. Your sole preoccupation must be to communicate facts in a clear and logical sequence so as to enable a translator or your Europe-based counterpart to reproduce that clarity and sequential logic in accordance with the local vocabulary, syntax and usage.

* If you want to get your message across, write as simply as you possibly can. This will facilitate comprehension if you are using English as the lingua franca; equally, it will facilitate translation or transposition if you are going for parallel versions in a foreign language.

* Bear in mind that, in translation, the degree of difficulty increases in direct proportion to the shortcomings of the original. The golden rule is: "Garbage in, garbage out."

* Ensure that the original text is culturally neutral by removing all references which are exclusively national in character and by deleting national jargon.

* Keep the syntax as simple as possible and avoid unnecessary inversions.

* Always make provision for cultural preferences.

* Never sacrifice clarity on the altar of brevity.

* Allow for text expansion. The French version of an English-language text, for example, can be up to 30 percent longer than the original; as a result, major transposition problems can arise at a number of levels, notably when dealing with captions, page references, footnotes, annotations and indexation and when duplicating source text layout.

* When repetition is used in the interest of greater clarity ("tell them what you are going to say, say it, then tell them what you said"), always cheek that the language employed is directly comparable: In other words, repeat by all means, but never paraphrase prior text simply to provide variety."

* As an extension of the above, try to caption photographs and illustrations by using excerpts from the text.

* Make sure you give your client in Paris, Bilbao, or Barcelona a comprehensive glossary of all abbreviations used in the text, indicating whether they are standard or specific to your company; scrupulously avoid ad hoc abbreviations and shorthand.

* Wherever possible, avoid "string compounds" which are not state-of-the-art terms ("airport terminal third phase reconstruction project subcommittee evaluation summary"). In other words, use verbs, prepositions, conjunctions to delineate relationships between nouns.

* Remember that the greatest danger in communication is to assume that it has taken place. Do not allow your familiarity with the subject matter to breed contempt for the reader. This is an irritant in the original language, but it will be a major source of confusion when filtered through a foreign language.

* When commissioning translation work, never use amateurs, even if there is somebody in your company whose wife's second cousin is French/ German/Greek/Polish. Choose an established agency with a network of specialist translators and revisors working into their own mother tongue and with direct experience of and access to foreign market conditions.

* Make sure you understand the translation process, its inherent problems and its cultural implications. Talk to the translator to determine in advance what problems can arise. Will the foreign language version be longer? How will this alter pagination? How will this affect cross-references and layout? What are the translator's credentials for tackling the text in question? What specific difficulties does he or she envisage?

* Check software and hardware compatibility and submit your copy on diskette using a well-known word processing programme.

* Make provision for software updates. Is there full compatibility between your database and that used by the translator? Agree how to make mutual provision for reindexation and realphabetization of glossaries, spare parts lists, etc.

* Use hard copy or on-screen "highlight zones" to delineate text that has to be updated or to indicate areas of text that must be translated to fit a particular space. (And don't forget the 30 percent rule!)

* Prepare as much back-up documentation as you can, ideally in the form of a sector-specific database. Use word processing programme features to flash extrinsic "help" messages to the translator (explaining particular abbreviations, paraphrasing difficult sections, etc.)

* Deliver clean copy, free of hand, written notes and corrections. Enclose high-quality copies of all illustrations and graphics.

* Brief your translator comprehensively, and trust his or her judgment as a fellow professional. Accept suggestions and (even) criticism. Define in advance the amount of linguistic latitude you will grant.

* Be available (or designate a contact person within your organization) for consultation throughout the life of the project; and

* Allow time for translation: If it took you six weeks to write the original, don't expect a foreign, language version yesterday.