Likewise, it is very important to take into account the requirements for a standard to be developed:

Once we have defined the necessary requirements for a quality standard to be defined, we must be aware of what standards are currently applicable to the translation process. With this background, the European Quality Standard for Translation Services can be explained. It is very important to highlight the fact that all other European standards applicable to translation will disappear when the new standard is put into effect.

At the present time, the following standards apply to translation in Europe:

Now that the reader is aware of the existing standards in Europe, it is time to introduce EN-15038. Actually, its precise name should be prEN-15038, as it is still in the draft stage. Approval is expected during this year.

Work began on the standard in 2000, when the CEN set up the BTTF 138 Taskforce, which was responsible for preparing the first draft. Prior to all of this, the European Union of Associations of Translation Companies (EUATC) had its own internal quality standard, which was the seed for EN-15038. In fact, the members of the EUATC were using the procedures described in this standard and considered that it was the right time to give this standard to a new body that would be applicable to translation companies. After the initial meeting in Brussels with the CEN, it was agreed with the other delegations from the national standardization bodies to also include freelance translators, and to cover translation services in general and translation service providers in particular. In this way, the entire industry would be represented.

After this, an international committee was set up and chaired by Miguel Núñez, at that time the chairman of the EUATC. It met periodically to shape the creation of the standard. The standardization bodies with their national committees (at the present time the CEN is made up of 28 members) were represented at the international committee meetings by means of a delegation of three people: the person in charge of the national committee and two delegates. There were also observers from Europe (such as the EUATC), the United States (the ATA and ASTM) and Canada who attended the meetings, so there were many participants in the process.

In turn, the national committees were, and continue to be, made up of translation companies (which may or may not belong to business associations), freelance translators, associations of translators and translation companies, universities, government agencies, companies involved in translation software applications (e.g., translation memories) and consumer associations, all of which remain under the umbrella of the corresponding national standardization body. However, the makeup of each group varied to a certain degree in accordance with the national interests of each group, as to whether they participated in these committees or not. Finally, CEN members (by a majority vote) decided that the International Secretariat for the standard would come from AENOR, the Spanish standardization body, of which ACT (Agrupación de Centros Especializados en Traducción / Spanish Association of Translation Companies) is a corporate member.

Each clause within the standard was voluntarily assigned to one of the national committees. After being created, each clause was submitted to debate by the national committees and subsequently to the other committees at their international meetings. The result, after very intense debates, was a draft that was submitted for public review, which ended last February. Comments and possible amendments will be dealt with at the last meeting of the committee at the end of May in Copenhagen. If all goes well, the standard will be approved and published by the beginning of 2006, when certification will then become possible. As mentioned previously, the present translation quality standards, which have been used as a reference for the new standard, will become obsolete when the latter is published.

EN-15038 currently includes the following sections:

As we all know very well in the localization industry, translation forms an integral part of the process, but it is not the only component. However, this is not so clear for those who are on the outside. Even the concept of software localization causes confusion due to a lack of knowledge of the processes involved: planning, engineering, translation, checking, trials, DTP, editing, etc.

This issue manifested itself in the debates, during which the Spanish committee especially defended the inclusion of the terms localization and locale, as localization activities represent a very significant amount in worldwide billings for translation services. However, clearly, the standard only refers to translation. Even though many of the processes are equally shared between translation and localization, localization includes aspects that are not necessarily present in translation. Therefore, localization is defined to be a value-added service within the standard. Globalization and internationalization, together with DTP, translation memory management, image processing and other activities that are typical of the localization process are also considered to be value-added services.

In addition, there are two definitions of localization included in the standard: one general and the other referring specifically to software localization. The latter is based on the LISA definitions:

… transfer of a concept in the source language, which belongs to a source-language convention, into the equivalent or an appropriate target-language convention. Software localization involves taking a product and making it linguistically, culturally and technically appropriate to the target locale (country/region and language) where it will be used and sold.

On the other hand, the standard includes implicit and explicit references to project management, the backbone of any localization project, and therefore of translation.

Finally, as has already been stated above, checking and correction are one of the cornerstones of this standard. It is precisely at this stage of the translation where the LISA QA Model and SAE J2450 evaluation standards (or any others that could be used by a translation company or a translator, either by choice or through requirements from external third-parties) are applicable,. The difference between the quality of the processes (the general standard) and the quality of the translation in and of itself (the evaluative standard) must be taken into account. Therein lays the importance of this standard, since it involves the standardization of a process that many carry out, but others do not. Based on this choice, the final quality of a translation or localized product may be affected. There is no doubt that if the general process is well-defined and integrated, and its requirements are met, the quality of the end product is almost guaranteed. If suitable staff are contracted; if the outsourcing processes between the customer, the translation company and the translator are appropriate; if the translation process is correct; if the review and revising process is well thought out and applied; is there any doubt that the end product, the translation in this case, will be the desired one?

Finally, which of us has not suffered from terminology changes that are the result of an unclear request from a customer to review, revise or edit a translation? Furthermore, there are cases in which one customer uses a term for an activity that does not coincide with the term used by another customer… and only experience and a knowledge of the customer, accumulated over time, gives us the clue as to what is required. Hence, the standard can solve this problem, since it clearly defines revise as a bilingual review and review as a monolingual review.

It is well known that there a lot of suspicion still exists between translation companies and freelance translators. It is hoped that the publication of the EN-15038 European Quality Standard for Translation Services
can form a bridge towards fostering more professional collaboration for those companies which achieve certification. The establishment of working procedures, which lead to satisfying the standard, could help to highlight the professional nature of a translation and localization service vendor that (1) provides added value to the translations received from translators before delivery to the end customer, and (2) that establishes a reliable commercial relationship with its freelancers. This is in contrast to the typical intermediary vendor that limits itself to simply passing the translation directly onto the end customer, without adding any value. For this reason (the ATA and the EUATC both agree on this), an attempt is being made to distinguish between the translation company/business that provides added value, and the translation agency that simply functions as an intermediary.

Likewise, this standard will provide a central reference point for the translation industry, so devoid of regulation and yet so much in need of it. Contacts have been made between the ISO and the European Standard Committee so that EN-15038 could be used as a basis for a hypothetical ISO Translation Standard. This, undoubtedly, would be very important news for everyone. The standard could even be used by academics to update their translation and localization studies programs.