With the internationalization of politics, translation is gaining in importance. A variety of politically-relevant text-types and genres are constantly being translated, and such 'political texts' subsequently function in different (national or international) contexts for specific addressees (politicians, special interest groups, wider public, etc.). This paper will comment on three aspects: (i) the use of political texts for decision-making within a country (with reference to specific formulation); (ii) cross-national debates caused by (specific formulations in) a political context; and (iii) the role of translation in and for multi-or transnational institutions (focusing on the appropriateness of Translation Studies concepts to account for products and processes). The first two aspects will be illustrated with reference to British-German relations; and the third one with reference to European Union institutions. Methodologically, the presentation will be related to causal models of translation (cf. Chesterman 1998), by illustrating how translation profiles can be linked to conditions and/or effects.