Directriu/directiva: aproximació a un terme jurídic conflictiu

Resum

International law often admits loan words and calques from foreign languages. The lending languages are usually English and French, those having the greatest weight internationally. Both Spanish, for historical reasons, and Catalan, because of its very low profile on the international stage, tend to be terminology-receiving languages. Since the new terms enjoy official recognition, they end up being legitimized on legal, political and journalistic levels. The legal language of the European Communities, which has been under construction for 50 years, is French in design. Spain's joining the European Union has meant that the Treaty and official documentation produced by the Community have been officially translated into Spanish. The case of the translation of the French directive by the Spanish directriz (guideline) or directiva (directive) illustrates the difficulties inherent in international legal translation. The translations in Spanish and Catalan are the only ones that use two words to refer to this term. The word directiva is a neologism in both languages and has sparked controversy both in legal and linguistic circles. In translation, the use of directiva in the context of the European Communities is limited to article 249 of the Treaty of the European Community and articles 161 and 162 of the EURATOM Treaty, and refers to the normative two-phase procedure between the Communities and the member states. On the other hand, directriz defines the political or economic guidelines that are set by the communities and that the states undertake to follow. In this case, the calque that came about by the translation of the French term directive has turned out to be a positive one, since it has allowed two different concepts to be distinguished through the use of two words.