Why Europe Needs a Structure Like Respond Crisis Translation
Building a Western European Languages Team
By Aymeric Felt,
Western European Team Co-Lead at Respond Crisis Translation
In Western Europe, linguistic diversity is a fact.
Linguistic justice is not.
Every day, people around the world interact with immigration services, hospitals, courts, and schools, without understanding the language spoken. The consequences are often severe: rights denied, diagnoses missed, legal outcomes compromised. Europe is no exception. Despite its linguistic richness, many of its systems remain rigidly eurocentrized, when not purely monolingual. Institutions routinely fail to provide trained interpreters, especially for speakers of less “official” languages. In Western Europe, this gap is particularly striking. People navigating complex bureaucracies are often left to rely on friends, children, or even Google Translate to explain an asylum claim, a legal process, or a medical emergency. That assumption isn’t just flawed: it’s dangerous.
This isn’t an exception. It’s the norm.
And it’s putting lives at risk.
Take Belgium, for example: authorities officially recognize three languages (Dutch, French, and German), but where the reality is far more multilingual. Every year, the country receives tens of thousands of asylum seekers, including the 39,615 who applied in 2024 alone. Many speak languages such as Arabic, Farsi, Pashto, Somali, Tigrinya, Lingala, and Turkish: languages not officially accounted for in Belgium’s linguistic framework.
Despite the demand, professional interpretation remains inconsistent and under-resourced. The CGRS (Belgium’s asylum authority) employs interpreters across around 100 languages, yet for so-called “rare” languages, applicants are often asked to bring their own interpreter, or are assigned one in a language they barely speak. In reception centers run by Fedasil, there are no in-house interpreters; instead, staff must rely on external providers, many of whom face payment delays, burnout, or chronic understaffing. In 2023, the EU Agency for Asylum explicitly flagged interpretation shortages in languages like Kirundi as a persistent obstacle in Belgium’s system.
But this isn’t unique to Belgium. Across France, the Netherlands, Germany, and beyond, the pattern repeats itself: growing linguistic diversity on one side, institutional neglect on the other. In many countries, interpretation is available only for the most “common” languages, if it’s available at all. Asylum interviews are conducted in languages applicants don’t fully understand. Medical care is delayed or denied because no one can interpret a diagnosis. In courtrooms, people are expected to speak for themselves, in a language that isn’t theirs. What looks like disorganization is, in fact, systemic exclusion. A multilingual Europe without multilingual infrastructure isn’t just a contradiction: it’s a form of violence
The human cost of this gap is immense. Without proper access to rigourous interpreters, people are left to rely on family members, sometimes even children, or turn to Google Translate in moments of extreme vulnerability: during asylum interviews, medical emergencies, or police encounters. In a bureaucratic system that demands flawless documentation, punctuality, and precise communication, the absence of qualified linguistic support can have devastating consequences. These are not exceptional cases: they are the predictable outcomes of a system that fails to recognize language access as a basic right.
This isn’t a flaw in the system. It is the system.
And it’s precisely what we’re trying to change.
At Respond, we’re not just plugging holes in a broken system, we’re challenging the idea that language access is negotiable. We’re building a team because Europe hasn’t. And we’re doing it with the belief that linguistic justice isn’t charity, and it isn’t optional. It’s a right. The Western European Languages Team is still in formation. It’s not a polished institution or a funded program. It’s a network, growing, multilingual, transnational, held together by people who understand that language is power. And that without it, people are silenced at borders, in hospitals, in courtrooms, in shelters.
Our aim is not to make the system more bearable. It’s to expose how unbearable it already is for those who are expected to navigate it without understanding it. We’re working to build a structure that meets people where they are, linguistically, emotionally, and culturally, when public institutions do not. That means creating ways to respond to urgent requests in “rare” languages, supporting interpreters who carry heavy emotional loads, and coordinating across borders to offer what states still treat as an afterthought.
We are not a replacement for institutional responsibility, but we are a mirror to it. We make visible what governments refuse to prioritize. And we refuse to accept a status quo where someone’s ability to be safe, heard, or believed depends on whether or not their language is considered “worth translating”.
We’re not just building a team.
We’re building pressure.
And we’re not going anywhere without you.
This work isn’t just about translation. It’s about refusing silence. It’s about building systems of care where institutions have built systems of exclusion. It’s about making sure that no one is denied protection, dignity, or safety because their language wasn’t “available.” If you’ve ever felt the frustration of being misunderstood, or the urgency of making someone feel heard, you understand why this matters. Maybe you’re a linguist. Maybe you speak a language that rarely gets recognized. Maybe you’ve lived through displacement, or seen someone you love fall through the cracks of a system designed without them in mind. Maybe you’ve never translated a word in your life, but you know what solidarity looks like when you see it.
We’re building something collective. Something grounded. And something that insists: language is not a barrier. It’s a bridge. So if this resonates, if you want to be part of a team that shows up, that speaks up, and that believes interpretation is a form of resistance, join us. Share this work. Support this mission.
Help us prove that linguistic justice is not a luxury. It’s the baseline.
Because we’re not waiting for the system to catch up.
We’re already doing the work.
And we need you.
