The European Parliament Interpreting Corpus (EPIC) is used to analyse the translation strategies adopted by simultaneous interpreters at the European Parliament when they encounter metaphors. The results of the study highlight a general tendency to use paraphrasing for catachreses and idioms, and literal translations for live metaphors. There is no consistent pattern, however, as regards the translation of metaphorical concepts. What emerges fairly clearly, however, is that metaphors (whether they are catachreses, live metaphors or metaphorical concepts) often seem to cause problems for interpreters. There are numerous examples of false starts and both silent and filled pauses in the translations of the interpreters when encountering a metaphorical element.