Newsflashes

Balance has a new website

On our homepage, you can see at a glance who our main clients are, the type of texts we translate and the members of our team. The new domain name of Balance texts & translations and Balance juridica is Balance2.nl. This domain name is shorter than the old name: Balancetranslations.com. Balance2 stands for 2 locations (P.C. Hooftstraat 21 in Amsterdam and Wilhelminasingel 104 in Maastricht), 2 areas of expertise (legal/commercial and general/technical) and the balance between your text and our translation.

The web design, photography and text advice for the new site were provided by Walter Goyen of LIQUA Text & Design, Amersfoort, www.liqua.nl.

Balance quick out of the blocks in 2009

In mid-December 2008, Balance was asked by the Cultural Heritage Department of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science to translate a substantial part of the Amsterdam canal network nomination dossier for the UNESCO World Heritage List into English. Despite the traditional busy period in late December, Balance translated ten of thousands of words between 15 December 2008 and 15 January 2009 to bring this assignment to a successful conclusion. Our client was extremely satisfied. In this case too, the quality approach adopted by Balance (translation by in-house native speakers and compete revision by in-house colleagues) clearly bore fruit.

The entire dossier was submitted by the Government to UNESCO before 1 February 2009. In the summer of 2010, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee will decide whether the Amsterdam canal network will be placed on the World Heritage List.
www.cultureelerfgoed.nl

Translation tour de force by Balance

In April 2008, the governors of the five partner regions in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion (the Belgian provinces of Limburg and Liège, the German-speaking community of Belgium, the Aachen region, and the Dutch Province of Limburg) held consultations about tackling the cross-border drugs problem and the related criminality. They subsequently instructed professors Cyrille Fijnaut and Brice De Ruyver to analyse the problem and to draw up a plan of approach to tackle drug-related crime in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion.

In view of the size of the report drawn up by the professors (almost 75,000 words), the language combinations (German and French), the content (administrative and legal), the extreme confidentiality and, moreover, the tight deadline (three working weeks), the clients contacted Balance translation agency. In close collaboration with the authors, Balance's German and French sections completed the entire project in record time to the complete satisfaction of the clients. One of them described this assignment as "a real tour de force by Balance".

On Friday 14 November, the report ("A proposal for the joint management of drugs-related criminality in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion") was presented to the responsible ministers (Justice and the Interior) in the Euroregion countries (Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands). In addition, the report was handed to approximately 80 representatives of public authorities, the police and the public prosecution services that the investigators spoke to in the various regions and countries. During the presentation, Professor Fijnaut was full of praise for the work performed by Balance.
www.euregio-mr.org

Balance wins European contract

INTERREG IVB Northwest Europe (NWE) is the popular name for an Objective-3 programme (European Territorial Cooperation) funded by the European Commission's European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The purpose of the programme, which is part of the European Structural Funds, is to make NWE more competitive, environmentally friendly and cohesive. More than EUR 355 million in ERDF funding will be allocated to the most innovative and ambitious projects between 2007 and 2013. The work will be coordinated by the Technical Secretariat in Lille (France).

Earlier this year, NWE put out a call inviting translation companies to tender for the Technical Secretariat's translation work. As it was an official European procurement procedure, it attracted tenders from an exceptionally large number of translation companies across Europe.

Companies bid on one or more of the following lots:
• lot 1 (French-English and vice versa)
• lot 2 (English-German and vice versa)
• lot 3 (English-Dutch and vice versa)
• lot 4 (French-Dutch and vice versa)

In late August, NWE announced that it had awarded the contract for lots 2, 3 and 4 to Balance texts & translations.

NWE cited the company's proven track record in the relevant language combinations, the experience it has acquired since 1998 in translating specialist spatial planning and water management texts, and - last but certainly not least - the quality of its translators. Another trump card mentioned by NWE was Balance juridica's expertise in the field of legal translation.

The project has now begun, and Balance's translators have got down to work on the first batch of texts.
www.nweurope.eu