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It is a career that marries two very diverse and indubitably challenging professions. Add to that a workload that is both heavy and unpredictable (extending to the weekends on occasion), and you have a career that a select few have decided to embark upon; that of lawyer-linguist at the European Union.

The majority of EU lawyer-linguists work at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Others work for the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council. The CJEU currently employs 598 lawyer-linguists, 60% women and 40% men, with an average age of 44.4 years. The language unit with the most number of lawyer-linguists is French (55), followed by English (35), German (31), and Italian (30). Other language units average about 23 lawyer-linguists, while Irish has the least at six.

Legal translation is an integral part of the proceedings at the Court of Justice: on the one hand, through their work, the lawyer-linguists enable the Court to understand all the necessary procedural documents, and on the other hand, they make the case law accessible to citizens, one such lawyer-linguist told Slator.

Asked for specific instances when their work proved critical to a major policy decision or political event that resonated with the public, the same source cited two instances. First, the ruling on the consequences of the notification by a Member State of its intention to withdraw from the European Union (C-621/18). These documents were urgently translated and paved the way for the United Kingdom for revocation of the notification under Article 50 of the Treaty on the European Union, which in fact never occurred, the EU lawyer-linguist said.

Second is a currently pending case that has to do with the imposition of record fines. As the same source pointed out, The cases where the General Court rules on fines imposed by the European Commission on large undertakings sometimes receive great resonance. A case is pending where the General Court is called to consider the action for annulment of the record fine of more than EUR 4 billion imposed by the European Commission on an undertaking within the information and communication technology sector for the abuse of its dominant position.

Lawyer-linguists at the CJEU, typically, spend most of their days preparing translations of procedural documents, opinions of Advocates General, and court judgments or miscellaneous documents (e.g., press releases). Depending on the lawyer-linguists level of expertise, they may also be expected to revise translations prepared by other lawyer-linguists and freelancers.

Lawyer-linguists are expected to translate into the language of their law studies, of which they have perfect command, from at least two other official languages. Depending on the needs of the language unit, they are also required to learn further official languages and may, therefore, spend part of their working week in language lessons, the lawyer-linguist told Slator.

The same source added, A typical day is also likely to involve some contact with other services of the Court, most often with the Judges Chambers, for example, in order to clarify an issue that has arisen in the translation of a judgment originating in the relevant Chambers.

Lawyer-linguists are expected to translate into the language of their law studies, of which they have perfect command, from at least two other official languages.

And there are other responsibilities on top of the lawyer-linguists usual workload: Delivering training, attending the workshop of another language unit on a point of national law, and participating in working groups on, say, legal terminology or translation productivity (CAT) tools.

Lawyer-linguists may also need to travel to another EU institution to undergo training or attend a conference on a relevant topic; or to their Member State for the purpose of extending the network of freelancers and the quality of their translations.

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All lawyer-linguists of the Court must have a law degree. There are no exceptions, the lawyer-linguist told Slator, adding that they also need to satisfy the following conditions to work at the European Union Court of Justice:

Although the work of lawyer-linguists is varied, the main part consists of managing a wide portfolio of translation and revision tasks with stringent deadlines and frequent interruptions due to emergencies or unexpected constraints; thus rendering the workload not only very high but also partly unpredictable, the source said.

The same lawyer-linguist pointed out, It is, therefore, expected that they periodically work long hours or even weekends when necessary. For instance, delivery of judgments is announced weeks or months in advance and, whatever the circumstances, the translation must be at hand, at least in the language of the case, otherwise it cannot be signed and delivered at a public hearing.

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What It Takes to Be a Lawyer-Linguist at the European Union - Slator

Since 2016, the Trump election, Brexit, and right-wing challenges across Europe have revealed an economic crisis of extraordinary proportions. Decades of laissez-faire economic policy have yielded a collapse in financial security for workers and farmers and a concentration of economic power at the very top. Now, Chinas state capitalism has emerged to challenge the liberal economic and political order, with similar implications for workers and corporate concentration.

Sadly, the nationalist response in the United States since 2016 has largely made the problems worse, while Europe is often left on its own in defending the liberal principles of broadly distributed economic power.

In 2008, the world faced a global financial crisis of similar proportions, but it responded together with extraordinary actions. Instead of our current, failing nationalist approach, America and the European Union must work together again. They can do this by building a new special relationship between Washington and Brussels, in which they commit to domestic reforms in flexible coordination with one another. This would have two economic aims: to combat corporate monopolies and to boost worker power globally. And since principle-based agreements like these rely on political will, the new relationship would work best in combination with a progressive trade deal, as Daniel Block proposed in his piece for this magazine last summer.

Block correctly argued that the United States and the European Union must address the collapse of labor power, tax evasion by companies, climate change, and related progressive concerns. But his proposal, bold as it is, is only part of the response. Thats because a trade agreement, with limited exception, is a complement to fixing domestic standards, not a replacement.

To that end, the U.S. and the EU should agree to adopt a set of domestic reforms, akin to the international response led by President Obama after the 2008 financial collapse. In the wake of the recession, the U.S. rallied the G20 around a common set of principles to guide financial reforms in each country. The reforms covered everything from standards for how many reserves large banks should maintain to protect against insolvency, to how countries could best manage the failure of large banks if and when that happened. But the principles were flexible enough to permit countries to do moresuch as a ban on high-risk proprietary trading in the U.S. and a cap on banker bonuses in the EU.

None of this was done through a trade agreement, but rather through political commitments from each country. The urgency of the crisis was the driving force for action, and while more could have been done (and still must be), U.S. leadership was critical to driving progress. Today, the rise of illiberal nationalism on both continents, coupled with attacks on our democracies by Russia and the rise of China, has given a similar urgency to our politics. The next progressive administration will have a chance to negotiate dramatic reforms that seemed impossible only a few years ago.

We could use a process similar to the post-financial-crisis reforms to increase the power of workers and farmers and rein in monopolies. To boost the economic power of workers, this U.S.-EU agreement would include commitments to raise or secure union density against the range of political interests and economic forces pressing against it. In the U.S., under a progressive administration and a progressively minded Senate, this would be achieved through a host of domestic reforms to undo 40 years of conservative attacks on unions, including enhanced strike rights and penalties for lawbreaking employers, as well as by adopting sector-wide bargaining.

In addition to giving more power to workers, the new U.S.-EU agreement would combat monopolies. It would begin by both the U.S. and Europe welcoming antitrust enforcement efforts by the other jurisdiction. And it would go one step furthercountries in this new agreement would work together on antitrust investigations to maximize their resources and effectiveness. Much like attorneys general in different states in the U.S. are working in conjunction to investigate big tech companies, different countries who had signed onto this agreement could work together when investigating multinational companies or concentrated sectors. This wouldnt bind countries to the same exact outcomes, lest that result in lowest-common-denominator enforcement. But pooling limited government resources can help us tackle enormously complex global companies and international supply chains.

Farmers in both the U.S. and the EU are being squeezed by monopolies, and they could benefit from the new agreement as well. On one end, farmers are forced to take high prices from their suppliers. The four largest suppliersfirms such as Bayer, which owns Monsantocontrol 85 percent of the corn-seed market, up dramatically in recent decades. On the other end, commodity-trading companies and massive food processors, like JBS and Tyson Foods, use their market dominance and oppressive contract terms to force farmers and ranchers to sell their products at unfairly low prices. In the U.S., farmers could be helped greatly by enforcing antitrust laws that are already on the books, which would be supported through a U.S.-EU commitment to dismantling agriculture monopolies.

These reforms would best be complemented by the progressive trade agreement outlined by Block. The forces of globalization have shifted bargaining power in favor of mobile capital and against domestic workersbut a progressive trade agreement could help mitigate that. Harking back to the Havana Charters vision, it should add standards to ensure fair competition, like clear labeling for domestically raised products, which could strengthen farmers too. And the trade deal could help enforce labor, environmental, and other standards by slapping duties on, or blocking at the border, products from any country that violates themsay, by denying workers collective-bargaining rights or permitting the emission of industrial toxins.

A coordinated anti-monopoly effort is also critical to meeting the challenge posed by China, where state-subsidized companies are angling to monopolize global markets and critical infrastructure (think Huawei gunning for dominance in 5G). A tough application of U.S. and EU antitrust law can supplement the screening of Chinese investments that might pose security risks, as well as other tough trade action against Chinese companies that get unfair state subsidies. And as the U.S. and the EU take steps to rein in the dominance of their own multinational companies, that may also reduce the pressure that China feels to build its own monopolies to compete with ours.

In the Trump era, the international economic response to the problems facing workers and farmers has not gone smoothly, leaving everyone worse off. But a more progressive administration in the United States could kick off an international process to address shared challenges and rebuild economic relationships with allies. After all, progressive priorities in the U.S.like raising labor and environmental standards and countering monopoliesare shared by Europeans and many other countries around the world. Counteracting the forces fueling economic distress for working families, the concentration of economic power, and the ensuing deep distrust in government would be a solid foundation around which to organize transatlantic economic and political relations. And with the rising challenge of China, it would help secure freedom and democratic self-government in the 21st century.

If you enjoyed this article, consider making a donation to help us produce more like it. The Washington Monthly was founded in 1969 to tell the stories of how government really worksand how to make it work better. Fifty years later, the need for incisive analysis and new, progressive policy ideas is clearer than ever. As a nonprofit, we rely on support from readers like you.

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Washington and Brussels Need a New Special Relationship - Washington Monthly

January 13 2020, 12:01am,The Times

David Pannick

The House of Lords will today begin its debates on the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill. There is no question of peers trying to block the Brexit that the bill implements. But we will perform our function of scrutinising the legislation and, where appropriate, make suggestions for improvements to its content. Clause 26, concerning judgments of the Court of Justice of the EU, requires particularly careful scrutiny.

We are leaving the EU but much of EU law will, for the time being, remain in our legal system. To ensure legal continuity and certainty, the bill confirms that almost all of the EU law which currently applies in this country will continue to do so unless and until parliament or ministers amend or repeal it. That

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We are leaving the EU but European law remains - The Times

Jan 11th 2020

FOR BULGARIAN bosses, recruitment is becoming a bit of a nightmare. Finding a lathe operatorcompetent or otherwise takes more than six months, and may require forking out cash to a recruitment agency. Older, savvier machine operators are retiring, complains Julian Stephanov, who runs a manufacturing firm near Sofia, and too few young people have the right skills. One problem is a lack of training. Another is that Bulgarias workforce has shrunk by 6% since 2008. Continued high emigration and low birth rates mean it is expected to fall by another third by 2050.

All across Europe, people are living longer and having fewer children. The same trends are, of course, seen in other rich countries, and many developing onesbut coping with them will be harder in Europe, because of its half-formed union where workers can move freely and many countries share a currency, but where there is no common fiscal policy or strategy to deal with ageing.

Investors are well aware of some of Europes shortcomings. The sovereign-debt crisis showed that converging inflation and interest rates did not, by themselves, ensure a sustainable currency union or integrated banking system. Wage bargaining, regulation and so on need to converge to stop imbalances between countries building up. Less well understood is that demography could also tear the union apart.

Even though Europe receives more migrants than it loses, the UN projects that its population will fall by around 5% by 2050. By then the median European will be 47 years old, nine years older than at the turn of the century, and four years older than the median American. In 2015 there was about one person older than 65 for every four people of working age (ie, an old-age dependency ratio of around 25%). By 2050 the ratio will be one to two; in America it will be one to three.

Some countries will suffer even more. Spain and Italy are expected to lose more than a quarter of their workforce by 2050. Populations in the south and east are forecast to shrink by a tenth on average. With fewer workers, those countries risk seeing growth stagnate, even as rising spending on pensions and health services pushes up public debt.

The 28 members of the European Union fall into three broad groups. Women in northern and western countries tend to have more children than the EU average (Germany is an exception). Though their fertility rates are below the 2.1 needed to sustain a population, high immigration means their populations have still grown.

Those in southern Europe, the second group, have stagnated or shrunk. Fertility rates are lower; in some countries, emigrants have outnumbered immigrants since 2010. Italy is emblematic. Older Italians drift away from work well before they reach pensionable age, and a shortage of child care means many women never return to work after giving birth. By the age of 50, just over half are in work. If those low employment rates persist as Italy ages further, in 2050 there will be more Italians over the age of 50 who are out of the labour force than there are workers of all ages, points out Stefano Scarpetta of the OECD, a Paris-based think-tank.

Populations in central and eastern Europe, the third group, have been falling fast because of emigration. Around 2.5m Romanian nationals of working age, equivalent to a fifth of the population, live elsewhere in the EU. These countries also have relatively low older and female participation rates (the Baltic states, which take inspiration from the Nordics, are an exception). Poland and Hungary offer financial incentives for child-bearing. But research suggests that these rarely work.

These demographic disparities worsen economic divides. Southerners start in a poor position. Productivity is low and as the number of people in work falls, growth will weaken. Their gross public debt is already highin Italy, over 130% of GDPand risks rising further. The euro-zones one-size-fits-all monetary policy may seem less appropriate as growth prospects diverge.

Most central and eastern countries are outside the currency union. But here too there are strains. EU membership promised speedy catch-up towards western European levels of income. But the IMF reckons that the annual growth rate of GDP per person will be up to a percentage point lower because of demographic decline, slowing convergence. Many of these newish members were initially keen on free movement. But after losing working-age people to Europes north and west, they are cooling on it. Croatia, which lost 5% of its population in the three years after it joined in 2013, wants the union to discuss tackling the effects of demographic decline.

Migration within the EU, as in America, has seen workers move to more dynamic cities and regions. Research by the Centre for European Reform suggests that less successful places tend to be older and less productive. The EU has a pot of money to ensure cohesion, but it is small and less equipped than national budgets to redistribute from winners to losers.

Europe needs coherent policies if it is to hold together as it ages. Older people and womenwho tend to have lower employment ratesshould be encouraged into work. If Italian women were as likely to work as German ones, Italys workforce would be 14% bigger. Matching older workers employment rates would add 5%.

Judging by France, providing cheap child care both encourages women into work and supports fertility rates, says Mr Scarpetta. Existing workers can be better trained; automation can supplement them. Improving education and investing in infrastructure could increase productivity. Governments can ensure that retirement ages keep pace with lifespans. All these policies would have the added benefits of attracting immigrants and convincing would-be emigrants to stay.

To date, northern countries have done the most. Germany acted decisively in the 2000s, says Axel Brsch-Supan of the Munich Centre for the Economics of Ageing. Reforms to state pensions linked contributions and payouts to the old-age dependency ratio. Partly thanks to rises in the pensionable age, employment rates for older people, especially women, shot up. In 2000 the share of older people in the workforce was only slightly above that in Spain and Greece. Now it is the EUs third highest.

But enacting and sustaining reforms has proved tricky. Past reforms have been rolled back. Higher pensionable ages introduced in Italy in 2011 were partially reversed last year; so too were measures in Poland and even Germany. Strikes in France against a pensions overhaul are in their second month (see article). Changes to pensions are so unpopular in the south because whole families often live off them, says Cinzia Alcidi of the Centre for European Policy Studies, a think-tank in Brussels. Spending more on working-age benefits would help.

The necessary reforms go far beyond those obviously connected to population ageing. Analysis by the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, for instance, finds that cutting corruption and strengthening institutions in less well-run countries could convince potential emigrants to stay home. Marshalling a decisive response to the continents changing demography will not be easy. But the EUs very survival may depend on it.

This article appeared in the Finance and economics section of the print edition under the headline "Demography could be yet another force for divergence within the EU"

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Demography could be yet another force for divergence within the EU - The Economist

LONDON (Reuters Breakingviews) - For aficionados of financial-political-economic crises, Greeces near-exit from the euro zone in 2015 was a classic. Two journalists have told the story as a bureaucratic page-turner.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras arrives at a European Union leaders summit after European Parliament elections to discuss who should run the EU executive for the next five years, in Brussels, Belgium May 28, 2019.

The Last Bluff: How Greece came face-to-face with financial catastrophe and the secret plan for its euro exit largely narrates six months of meetings, speeches, popular votes, meetings and more meetings. Remarkably, Viktoria Dendrinou and Eleni Varvitsioti convey the excitement and tension felt by the protagonists.

As is often the case in dramas, the ending is predictable but only with the benefit of hindsight. Viewed from today, it is clear that in the beginning of 2015 German Chancellor Angela Merkel would guide the Europeans towards a deal with this wayward member of the European single currency.

The Greeks would ultimately cooperate, since output and employment were starting to recover, and a large majority of Greek voters were committed to keeping the euro. Something resembling the compromise which was finally reached just before 8 a.m. on July 13 of that year was pretty much inevitable.

Dendrinou and Varvitsioti, respectively journalists at Bloomberg and the Greek newspaper Kathimerini, make clear that it did not feel that way at the time. The election of Alexis Tsipras as Greeces prime minister in January 2015 created real dramatic tension.

The inexperienced radical politician had promised voters that he would resist the latest demands of the countrys creditors, represented by the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund. Tsipras was popular, because many euro-loving Greeks hated the harsh reforms and fiscal austerity that the troika had imposed. Tsiprass choice of finance minister increased the chances of catastrophe. Yanis Varoufakis was a Marxist economist with no relevant experience and unlimited self-confidence. As it turned out, Greece barely avoided crashing out of the euro.

The Last Bluff follows the twists and turns of the story with admirable clarity and concision. Varoufakis was sidelined; Merkel and Francois Hollande, the French president, took charge; the International Monetary Fund slowed progress; Greece defaulted and imposed currency controls; the Europeans secretly planned for Greece to leave the single currency. Most importantly, Tsipras learned that he was far too weak to bully the European Union. Throughout, the EUs leaders, Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, were mostly helpful, and a large cast of senior and junior bureaucrats kept track of the seemingly endless details.

Varoufakis has written his own version of this story, but Tsipras is the most interesting character in this account. His political coming-of-age required jettisoning long-cherished left-wing populist dreams. That was hard, but the prime minister eventually learned that dogma is less productive, both politically and economically, than painful compromise. He ended up ignoring the result of a referendum that he himself had called, showing great personal courage as well as some political cunning.

While Dendrinou and Varvitsioti steer clear of grand historical analysis, one great theme does emerge the value of the European project to its participants. The EUs politicians and civil servants were not happy about dedicating so much time to one small country and its truculent and often ill-informed politicians. But everyone was willing to make a huge effort to keep Greece onside, simply to avoid jeopardising an organisation which had become so central to peace, prosperity and identity.

The last dramatic scene shows how this almost instinctive loyalty tipped the balance in favour of what only now looks like a pre-ordained ending. The all-night negotiations seemed to have failed. An exhausted Merkel stood up, declaring, Then its over. Greece will leave the euro zone. But Tusk blocked the door, asking her: Do you really want me to say that the euro zone broke up over 2.5 billion euros? She sat down again for another half hour of talks.

The results were what Dendrinou and Varvitsioti call a typical European fudge. Europe may be a high ideal, but its flexible politics can be pretty low.

The leading American economists who called on Tsipras to embrace currency flexibility by abandoning the euro did not understand the single currencys political and cultural importance. They also overestimated the economic value of a national currency for Greece.

A new drachma would only reduce the pressure on future Greek governments to address what the authors describe as the real, deep problems of the state in areas such as justice, competitiveness, tax evasion and the functioning of independent authorities. After the last fudge, the European authorities also lost interest in tackling these problems. The European vision may be noble, but the execution is often flawed.

British readers of the The Last Bluff will undoubtedly compare the Greek experience to their countrys negotiations to leave the EU. On the EU side, the approach is remarkably similar. Internal differences are smoothed over and the good of the Union is paramount. However, neither Theresa May nor Boris Johnson, the two British prime ministers involved, seem to have Tsiprass ability to recognise what was really at stake.

Reuters Breakingviews is the world's leading source of agenda-setting financial insight. As the Reuters brand for financial commentary, we dissect the big business and economic stories as they break around the world every day. A global team of about 30 correspondents in New York, London, Hong Kong and other major cities provides expert analysis in real time.

Sign up for a free trial of our full service at https://www.breakingviews.com/trial and follow us on Twitter @Breakingviews and at http://www.breakingviews.com. All opinions expressed are those of the authors.

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Breakingviews - Review: Greek crisis drama shows EUs good and bad - Reuters