In recent years Europe has occupied itself as never before with interpreting in court and for public authorities, thereby for the first time achieving greater awareness across disciplines for this field of interpreting. With the Treaty of Lisbon (2009) the EU was given greater power in criminal law. The first criminal law act under the new treaty was Directive 2010/64/EU of the European Parliament and Council, which deals with interpreting in criminal court cases and sets new standards for the quality of court interpreting in Europe. The improvement in the quality of legislation governing court interpreting in the past few years was anticipated by the following passage taken from the directive: