Europe proposes unchanged ITU language cap and automated tools

Six languages, one CHF 85m ceiling: Europe puts a machine in the ITU booth

Why it matters

A European proposal keeps the ITU’s language-services cap fixed for another four years and tells the organization to use automated interpretation and translation whenever possible.

Daniel Kade25 October 2026 at 19:29 UTCReading Time 2 minLast update: 25 October 2026

A European ITU proposal joins an unchanged four-year language-spending ceiling to automated language tools.

Summary

CEPT proposes keeping the CHF 85 million ceiling for ITU interpretation, translation and text processing through 2028–2031; the 2022 decision already set the same ceiling for 2024–2027.
Its draft adds use of automated interpretation and translation tools whenever possible, while retaining the requirement to protect translation quality and technical terminology.

Six languages enter the meeting. One spending ceiling waits at the door. In addendum 15 to contribution 75, European member states propose extending the ITU’s four-year cap on interpretation, translation and text processing to 2028–2031 at CHF 85 million. The same clause would tell the Union to use automated tools for interpretation and translation whenever possible. The official contribution register records the text as a proposal for the November conference.

The number itself is familiar. Decision 5 adopted in 2022 already capped these services at CHF 85 million for 2024–2027 and fixed each Member State contributory unit at CHF 318,000. Europe proposes both numbers again for the next four years. The editorial event lies in the added instruction beside the unchanged cap: a tool once left to operational choice would acquire a place in the Union’s budget rulebook.

The draft repeats the idea in Annex 2’s cost-saving list. Shorter documents, optimized language-service resources and alternative translation procedures remain there; automated interpretation and translation would join them. The same paragraph preserves the goals of Resolution 154 on equal treatment of six official languages and requires translation quality and accurate telecommunications terminology. Those two lines will have to meet in practice, especially when a live debate contains a term that can change the meaning of a proposal.

The Council would still set the two biennial budgets. CEPT would require draft balanced budgets to reach its finance and human-resources working group no later than four months before the 2027 and 2029 Council sessions, with complete data at least seven weeks before the sessions. The conference has not adopted this package. If it does, the practical question becomes visible in the budgets and language-service results: where did automation save money, and who caught the sentence it got wrong?