The language industry associations in Northern Europe have decided to create a joint network to discuss industry-related matters and to take common action when needed. The Northern European Language Network (NELN), established in January 2023, is open to any language association in the Nordic and Baltic region.    

The initiative of creating a new discussion network goes back to the Nordic Translation & Interpreting Forum, held in Malmö last November, where enhanced cooperation in the region was one of the workshop topics. After the conference, the participating associations – Språkföretagen, Finnish Language Service Providers (SKY), Association of Estonian Translation Companies (ETBL), Translatørforeningen and Sveriges facköversättarförening (SFÖ) – wanted to keep up good discussions on common issues and decided to invite other industry associations to join.

So far, several other associations of language professionals, both for freelancers and companies, have joined NELN. Like for the EU presidency, the network meetings are facilitated by one of the associations at a time and will be switched every six months. For our first term, the facilitator is the Finnish LSP association SKY and on July 1st the baton will be passed on to Sweden and Språkföretagen, for the second term.  

“This new network provides a great opportunity to be in touch with our Nordic and Baltic colleagues and discuss different topics”, says Katja Virtanen, NELN’s first facilitator and board member of SKY. “Many issues in the industry are global, but sometimes tackling them regionally can be more effective.”

“For us, establishing contacts with other associations in the region and sharing best practices is very important”, says Eha Mäesalu from the Estonian Association of Masters in Conference Interpreting and Translation (ETML). “We are especially pleased to see LSP and freelancer organizations working together.”

The Northern European Language Network (NELN) welcomes all language associations in the Nordic and Baltic region to join!

Network Members

• Språkföretagen (Swedish Association of Translation and Interpreting companies)
• Finnish Association of Translators and Interpreters (SKTL)
• Association of Estonian Translation Companies (ETBL)
• Kieliasiantuntijat ry (Language Experts)
• Estonian Association of Masters in Conference Interpreting and Translation (ETML)
• Finnish Language Service Providers (SKY)
• Swedish Association of Professional Translators (SFÖ)
• Danish Association of Certified Translators and Interpreters (DACTI)
• Association of Lithuanian Translation Companies