AICE’s history goes back to the ‘60s. Following the trying postwar years, Spain began to take steps to modernise its economy and improve its standard of living. A development programme focussing on the iron and steel industry, consumer goods and the automobile sector was devised to foster growth. Imports increased, foreign investors began to arrive and Spain joined the OECD and the IMF. The plan enjoyed a greater success than even the most optimistic experts had forecast and the country embarked on a course of radical economic change. Average per capita income increased and multinationals began to make heavy investments. Before long Spain ceased to be an agricultural economy and became a flourishing industrial power.
As a result of these changes, Spain abandoned its past isolation and gradually opened its doors to the outside world. An increasing number of conferences, symposia and conventions started to be organised in the country and experts from all over the world brought up-to-date information to a population avid of outside knowledge. It was in this context that a group of six interpreters, pioneers in the field, decided in 1968 to establish the Spanish Association of Conference Interpreters in Madrid. Dante Bassi, Isidoro Calin, Pedro Gozález Maumejean, Thomas Monaghan, Julián Solana and Enrique Villaín had learned their skills either abroad or in the limited local market of the 50s and early 60s.
From the very beginning, AICE interpreters stood out for their ability to offer quality interpretation into at least two languages ("both ways"). Initially, the group was able to provide interpretation into German, French, English and Italian. During the early years, most of the events held in Spain were organised by the public administration or by international organisations (FAO, WHO, etc), but soon the private sector also began to use professional interpretation in their meetings.
Over time AICE grew, expanded its membership and the number of languages offered also increased. Private enterprises began to organise a growing number of seminars and symposia and AICE interpreters saw the need to specialise in fields such as medicine, computing, law, finance, etc.
Despite these developments, simultaneous interpretation continued to be an unknown profession to most Spaniards. That all changed when in 1976 TVE, the National Television Network, began to air a forum of debate with foreign participants called "La Clave" (The Key). The programme, which rapidly became very popular, used exclusively AICE interpreters. Suddenly millions of Spaniards were exposed to the use of interpretation and began to appreciate its usefulness. For years, many AICE interpreters were known as "The Voices of La Clave".
When in 1986 Spain joined the European Community, the number of international meetings held in the country soared and modern conference halls began to mushroom all over. AICE interpreters were protagonists of this development making it possible for Spaniards to listen in their own language to the ideas of people of the prestige of Robert Gallo and Luc Montaigner (discoverers of the AIDS virus), Bill Gates (factotem of commercial software), Nobel laureate Jos Saramago, Noam Chomsky (creator of generative grammar), Helmut Kohl (promoter of the idea of Europe) and film director Bernardo Bertolucci among many others.
AICE currently has over 70 members based all over Spain. Today’s interpretation market is a far cry from the one the original group of 6 was familiar with. Interpreters in modern Spain are more highly specialised and work in an increasingly competitive environment. Nevertheless, AICE interpreters continue to stand out on the basis of number of assignments per year (over 8,000 in 2000) and the quality they offer. We have come a long way since 1968 but quality, a professional attitude and a traditional policy of welcoming top professionals to AICE continue to be the basic ingredients that explain the growing success of our Association.