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The European Parliament's Secretary General, Klaus Welle, has [urgent / urged] Euro politicians to speak more slowly and to [stick / glue] to their native language instead [of / for] using English. This is to help the hundreds of interpreters who work at the [institution / instigation] . Mr Welle said many interpreters were encountering difficulties [do / doing] their job. He said: "It's [extremely / extremity] important that people do not speak too fast." He asked politicians not to use English if it was not their native language [was / as] this complicates [thing / things] for the translators. He said "It's also extremely important for interpreters that people speak their [own / owned] language. If the politicians speak a foreign language, the quality of interpretation [goes / go] down."

There are 24 [officially / official] languages spoken at the European Parliament. The most [recent / recently] additions are Croatian, Irish, Bulgarian and Romanian. A small [army / armed] of 330 interpreters is employed to [reassure / ensure] everyone understands [each / one] other. The parliament employs an additional 1,800 freelancers. It also has about 700 translators, who translate over 100,000 pages each [monthly / month] . If everyone [followed / follow] Mr Welle's request, only politicians from the UK would be allowed to speak English, even though many [membered / members] are multi-lingual. Many [prefer / rather] to speak in English to avoid the confusion of having several simultaneous interpreters. The parliament's [annually / annual] budget for interpreters is $50 million.