Spain’s Government Awards Language Services Contract Worth Nearly EUR 6M

Spain’s central government is set to award language services contracts worth EUR 5.9m (USD 6.4m), effective before the end of 2024, according to a local press source.

The contracts will cover translation, interpretation, transcription, and live subtitling services for speeches made in congress in the country’s co-official languages. The initial contract term ends on December 31, 2025, with the possibility of an extension until the end of 2027.

These awards come a little over a year after the Spanish congress passed a linguistic diversity law in August 2023, allowing the use of Basque, Catalan, and Galician along with Spanish in official sessions and documentation. 

The EFE Spanish news agency reported in September 2023 that about six interpreters had been hired on a freelance basis as the law became effective. Those interpreters apparently never received permanent contracts, which led to protests.

The amounts that were reportedly allocated also changed over the next few months, and in December 2023, the Senate officially announced the tender, qualifying the outsourcing of language services in media outlets as the most appropriate solution.

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The largest allocation goes to interpreting services, awarded to U.T.E. AIBAIM (Agrupación de Intérpretes de Barcelona, S.L. and Agrupación de Intérpretes de Madrid, S.L.), for a maximum adjusted contract value of EUR 3.2m (USD 3.4m). Another company, OnCall Europa Language Services, also received a contract in June 2024.

The translation and transcription awards have similar yearly allocations, with the translation contract awarded to Altalingua S.L. for EUR 202,541.85 per year (USD 220,839.48). The maximum adjusted contract value is EUR 1.07m (USD 1.16m), similar to the amount designated for subtitling and almost twice as much as the maximum award for transcription services.

The subtitling contract was awarded to Red Bee Media, S.L., a subsidiary of Sweden’s Ericsson, for a maximum adjusted contract value of EUR 1m (USD 1.09m), and the transcription contract went to Pangeanic BI Europa, S.L. for EUR 218,303.30 per year (USD 237,992.07). The total maximum adjusted transcription contract value is EUR 694,253.84 (USD 756,868.59).

A language technology and equipment contract was also awarded in October 2024, with EUR 1.6m (USD 1.7m) going to Basque Country-based Telesonic for outfitting eight halls. The equipment and systems are to support speech translation and subtitling.

Interestingly, the Spanish provincial government of Catalonia issued a much larger translation and interpreting services tender in October 2024. The tender, worth EUR 25m (USD 28.2m), covers languages in demand primarily in the Barcelona area.