No scandal

This blog fo­cus­es on the every­day wor­king life of an in­ter­pre­ter. My na­tive lan­guage is Ger­man, and I work pri­ma­ri­ly as a con­fer­en­ce in­ter­pre­ter for French and out of Eng­lish; my col­le­ague trans­la­tes in­to Eng­lish.

The author of these lines at work in Strasbourg (2007)

A brief note on the cur­rent Me­rco­sur “scan­dal” we are having in Germany right now: the Eu­ro­pe­an Par­lia­ment did not block the a­gree­ment, but re­ferred it to the Eu­ro­pe­an Court of Jus­tice for a rou­tine le­gal re­view. This is stan­dard pro­ce­dure.

The nar­ra­tive that the Ger­man Greens acted as a de­ci­sive swing fac­tor does not hold up. 
The re­fer­ral passed with a ma­jor­i­ty of ten votes. 

Ger­man Green votes: 8. Ger­man con­ser­va­tive votes: 45. The “scan­dal block­ade” is part of a me­dia cam­paign.

From long ne­go­ti­a­tions, in­ter­pre­ters know how such deals are made: soft­ened for­mu­la­tions, com­pro­mi­ses, and hopes for fu­ture ad­just­ments. Ex­act­ly for this rea­son, ju­di­cial re­view is not a po­lit­i­cal ob­sta­cle, but a ne­ces­sary in­sur­ance a­gainst le­gal and en­vi­ron­men­tal risks la­ter on.

In times of e­lec­tion cam­paigns and per­ma­nent out­rage, le­gal cer­tain­ty is not a lux­u­ry. It is part of the in­fra­struc­ture of de­mo­cra­cy.

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Pho­to:K.K.