​Jorge Valero, EU Correspondent, discusses the "double dip recession" in late 2020, the urgency of the fiscal and monetary stimulus and the dilemma of slowness and speed in the management of Covid 19.

Once upon a time, Celtic languages were being spoken all over Europe from the British Islands till Anatolia, land of the Galatians (Greek name for the Celts), where Saint Paul addressed a letter to them. Today they eke out a marginal existence at the edges of Brittany, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. What are the features of these languages, their kinship and mutual intelligibility? Which policies eliminated them? How does the Celtic issue influence the Post-Brexit situation? Our colleague Diarmuid Johnson, who has written books on these topics, provides answers.

This is the current plight of the Visiting Translating Scheme. However, its general mission is not impossible at all: online VTS projects can bridge the Corona-time and prepare the ground for real visits. Let us listen to two colleagues who could not carry out their missions in 2020, but nevertheless kept in touch with their partners.

​Christos ELLINIDES, DDG Translation, explains what DGT's workrate is: a long term reference value to assess in-house capacity and resource needs, expressed as "page equivalent" including quality control. The rate remains stable, even during COVID, despite major production shocks in line with the legislative agenda. But "the center still holds".

Alain Cambier, auteur de "Philosophie de la post-vérité", analyse les conséquences pour la démocratie quand la conviction violente se substitue à la recherche de la vérité. http://alaincambier.fr/

​Emma Charlotte Hartkamp (Field Officer in The Hague) and Martin Voigt (organizing team) tell us how they recast this language festival under Covid-19. What were the benefits for their public, partners and organisers? The future of reading was a top focus among the many activities that highlighted language, translation and multilingualism. Emma and Martin explain.

Prof. Rudy Loock (Lille Univ.) explains how to put the social media to the professional use of translators, and build a strong e-reputation. This is a follow-up to the survey he conducted among translators (https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/emt/)

James Archibald(McGill University) discusses the key findings of a conference held mid October. Is language a condition to enjoy one’s rights effectively? What if we were all concerned? More about the project to have a language-neutral plain language standard recognized internationally.
https://www.accessforallconference.com/program
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:32012L0013
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB3254
https://droitsquotidiens.design/

Norman Jardine, DG HR&Security, presents the early results of the 3-month in-house consultation towards the Commission’s HR strategy due for early 2021. The Staff expressed engagement and concern on their working conditions and well being under COVID, on attracting (and keeping) talent, on career structure, on diversity and inclusion, on leadership … Let us not waste the chance for an earnest rethink. https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/connected/groups/new-hr-strategy-for-the-commission

Our colleagues from Rome, Vienna, Warsaw and their coordinator in the DGT.02 Communication Unit present the campaign conducted across the EU over two months for the European Day of Languages.
They explain their strategies to make the role of translation visible and reach out to local audiences.
https://ec.europa.eu/info/departments/translation/discovertranslation_en