20. Notes with concern the enormous disparities in translation costs among the various Union institutions; calls, therefore, on the Interinstitutional Working Group on Translation to identify the causes of those disparities and put forward solutions that will put an end to the imbalance and harmonise translation costs while ensuring full respect for quality and linguistic diversity; notes, with this in mind, that the working group should relaunch cooperation among the institutions in order to share best practices ...[+++] and outcomes and to identify areas in which cooperation or agreements between the institutions can be strengthened; notes that the working group should also aim to establish a unified methodology of presenting the translation costs which all the institutions can use, in order to simplify the analysis and comparison of the costs; notes that the working group should present those findings before the end of 2015; calls on all the institutions to play an active role in the work of the Interinstitutional Working Group; recalls in this regard the fundamental importance of respect for multilingualism in the Union institutions in order to guarantee equal treatment and equal opportunities for all Union citizens;

109. Considers that the externalisation of translation can result in important cost savings, efforts should, however, be made to increase the quality of external translations; supports the increasing use of the Euramis database, common to all EU institutions, and other technological developments in the field of translation (such as a single integrated system of DocEP and Euramis/translation memories) which aim to avoid double translations and to lower the cost of translation; stresses, however, that no machine translation system can totally replace translators;

110. Considers that the externalisation of translation can result in important cost savings, efforts should, however, be made to increase the quality of external translations; supports the increasing use of the Euramis database, common to all EU institutions, and other technological developments in the field of translation (such as a single integrated system of DocEP and Euramis/translation memories) which aim to avoid double translations and to lower the cost of translation; stresses, however, that no machine translation system can totally replace translators;

The total annual costs of the Agency are estimated at approximately € 6-7 million per year, of which € 5 million for staff expenditure (taking as the average per person the cost of European Commission staff, i.e. € 0.117 million per year, which includes expenditures associated with buildings and related administrative expenditures), € 1 million operational costs (meetings, studies, as well as translation, publication and public relations costs) and the rest for capit ...[+++]al expenditures (relating to the acquisition of movable property and associated expenditure) and mission expenditures.

in all cases of return, information to third-country nationals on return in general, counselling to individuals on the possibilities for voluntary return, translation costs, procurement of indispensable travel documents, costs of necessary pre-return medical checks, costs of travel and food for returnees and escorts, including medical staff and interpreters, accommodation for escorts including medical staff and interpreters, costs of transport in the Member State and up to the country of return and cooperation with the authorities of the country of origin, former residence or transit.

On translation costs, the Commission will explore with the Member States ways of improving the language regime with a view to reducing costs while increasing legal certainty.