The “Nederlandse Mededingingsautoriteit” — the Dutch cartel police — is mainly powerless in face of megafusions in the energy, health or banking sector. But now they have found another group of criminals: translators. Illegally they have set a minimum fee, e.g. 5,9 Eurocent per word for translations from English or Hungarian. But this has now led to interventions, first an article in the NRC Handelsblad by Maarten Huygen (31. March). Now Mei Li Vos, Labour MP, asked the staatssecretaris van Economise Zaken 10 questions: if she was aware of this problem, aware of the (economic) pressure freelancers work under in the media, aware of the new regulations in Germany, where exactly such minimum fees are legal, and if she was prepared to introduce similar changes to the regulations in the Netherlands.
see also Mei Li Vos’ website and the report on boekvertalers.nl