La contribution du Service linguistique du Conseil de l'Union européenne au travail de la présidence hongroise

The aim of this paper is twofold: it gives a short presentation of the working methods in place at the Linguistic Service of the Council of the European Union, and it describes - on the basis of experiences gained during the Hungarian Presidency from 1st January to 30th June 2011 - the manner in which presidency influences the everyday work of the corresponding translation unit. The first part of the article is devoted to the functionning of the Linguistic Service of the General Secretariat of the Council (GSC) and presents who are the main addressees of the documents produced by the GSC and what kind of texts and how many pages per year are to be translated. In the second part, it is clarified how this picture is modified when a given unit has to perform some extra duties for the Presidency in terms of new types of documents, temporary increases in workload and more regular contacts with the national authorities.