This master's thesis is about the EU's inter-institutional interpreting test. First, free-lance conference interpreting, modes of interpreting and language combinations are discussed. Later, the thesis explains the way of becoming a free-lance interpreter with the European Institutions. This is followed by a description of the requirements to be eligible for the test, the examination arrangements and the inter-institutional interpreting test's procedure. The accreditation test for interpreters

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... ncludes not only an evaluation of the consecutive and simultaneous interpreting skills, but also an interview. In this interview the candidates are asked about their knowledge and in order to pass the whole exam they have to pass the interview as well. Moreover, this thesis specifies criteria the candidates have to meet. These criteria for the evaluation of the interpreter's performance are explained in-depth by means of scientific studies. This should enable candidates to see what requirements they have to meet according to different perspectives, and not only from the inter-institutional test committee's point of view. The candidates get an insight into the criteria according to which speakers prepare their test speeches. The corpus analysis deals with the factors that influence the interpreter's performance. Here we differentiate factors that facilitate or aggravate interpreting. E.g. technical terms, numbers, enumerations, names, idioms, culture specific aspects and quotes belong to the aggravating factors. Speaking speed, speaker's accent and environmental factors have an impact on the production of the target text as well. Pauses, redundancy and paraphrases belong to the facilitating factors. On the basis of the analysis of representative speeches given at the inter-institutional interpreters' accreditation test these criteria are discussed in detail.