About
Key dates:
1998 – Training in business theory run by the University of Central Lancashire (England), followed by two-week, in-house, practical training for the managers of twelve translation companies from Central and Eastern Europe at Peter Barber’s offices – foundation of Eupharia; execution of the Eupharia Memorandum; election of Peter Barber of Euronet as founding chairman and Tsetska Radeva of Interlang as secretary.
1999 – Eupharia annual meeting in Prague, Czech Republic. Lubos Skupnik of MEDIA MARKET takes over as chairman.
2000 – Joint meeting of EUPHARIA and EULOGIA, hosted in Budapest, Hungary, and execution of the Budapest Accord, laying down the principles of cooperation between the two consortia.
2001 – Eupharia meeting in Pärnu, Estonia – cancelled, owing to travelling difficulties caused by 9/11. Iztok Zagar of Amidas is elected chairman.
2002 – Eupharia meeting in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Peter Barber is re-elected chairman.
2003 – Eupharia meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria. We begin the search for members representing Maltese, Polish and Turkish.
2004 – Eupharia meeting in Bratislava, the Slovak Republic. Welcome to the two new members, MEDI Ltd., representing Turkish, and Maltese Translators, representing Maltese. Eszter Pásztor of Németh & Pásztor International is elected chairman, and Aleksandrs Belavskis takes over as secretary. Shortly after the meeting we welcome our new Polish member, ABOVE Translations, on board.
2005 – Eupharia meeting held in Vilnius, Lithuania. Eszter Pásztor and Aleksandrs Belavskis are re-elected. The search for a Serbian member begins.
2006 – Eupharia meeting in Malta. Welcome to Sanja Mihailovic and Predrag Jovic, representatives of our new member for Serbian, Elitence o.d. Eszter Pásztor is re-elected as chairman, Liliana Dellevoet is the new secretary. Shortly after the meeting, Jurate Sakaliene is elected treasurer.
2007 – PROSPER-ASE hosts the annual meeting of Eupharia in Bucharest. Both Eszter Pásztor and Liliana Dellevoet are re-elected for the same positions as in 2006.
2008 – Eupharia members meet in Istanbul, Turkey. Jurate Sakaliene is elected Chair and Petr Šlajer becomes secretary. The members vote in favour of a new Polish partner company: Us³ugowo-Handlowa Dorota Smoczyk.
2009 – New meeting hosted by the Latvian partner, in Riga.
2010 - The Eupharia annual meeting took place in Prague, hosted by MEDIA MARKET. Representatives from the local STAR subsidiary were invited to present a new release of the Transit translation tool (Version XVI) and demonstrated its use in practice.
2011 - The members of Eupharia agreed not to meet this year in view of the general economic climate.
2012 - Not far from the previous venue, the members came together in the Slovak capital city of Bratislava.
2013 - Back to where it all started, London, the world’s leading city, to celebrate our 15th anniversary.
2014 - Eupharia annual meeting took place in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. It focused on quality management and future perspectives.
2016 - The Eupharia meeting in Poznan (Poland) saw a change in focus for the members, reflecting the changes in market emphasis and demands over the 18 years since our foundation meeting. The membership has changed, too, and we agreed that Eupharia was still a vital organisation but in future it would be a ‘Special Interest Group’ without a commercial ambition. Members would still meet from time to time to discuss matters of shared interest, and work together according to their individual needs. Those present expressed enthusiasm for the new focus.
Goal for the future
- to continue to promote Eupharia, by example, as an acknowledged Centre of Excellence in the translation field.
Eupharia [eu-, good + pharos, beacon or lighthouse] was born out of the germ of an idea by a man of vision. That man was Peter Barber. That vision, tied in with the envisaged enlargement of the European Union, was to enable companies and organisations to communicate with confidence in the new, expanded Europe by promoting quality in translation.
To that end, he scoured Europe from the Baltic to the Black Sea until he found companies which shared this vision. Then, with the support of the British Council, he turned this vision into reality with a unique, customized training course on the practical realities of the market economy and the overarching benefits of providing a quality service. The result, in 1998, was the formation of the only consortium of translation companies in Central and Eastern Europe operating uniformly to the highest quality standards, a consortium that continues to sustain Peter Barber’s vision – Eupharia.