WRITTEN QUESTION No. 169/98 by Sérgio RIBEIRO to the Council. Map of the EU on the euro coins and failure to differentiate two Member States
C 196/120 EN Official Journal of the European Communities 22. 6. 98 (98/C 196/167) WRITTEN QUESTION P-0169/98 by Se·rgio Ribeiro (GUE/NGL) to the Council (28 January 1998) Subject: Map of the EU on the euro coins and failure to differentiate two Member States The information and publicity material produced by the European Monetary Institute concerning the euro (e. g. the recently distributed 1998 calendar) has included designs of euro coins showing the EU map in such a way as to distinguish all the Member States › with the exception of Portugal and Spain, which are lumped together as if they were a single country. This error (for it can only be an error) has been reported in the Portuguese media (see the 16 January 1998 issue of the newspaper O Independenteí), and the Council is no doubt aware of the seriousness and sensitiveness of the matter. The cooperation procedure for the adoption of a Council regulation on the denominations and technical specifications of the euro coins is now under way; Parliament has adopted two resolutions (on 6 November and 17 December 1997), without, however, making any reference to this error. Can the Council state what action it intends to take to correct this error and avert its consequences, and what action or actions it intends to promote so as to alert public opinion to the matter and remedy or alleviate those consequences which it is now too late to prevent? Answer (30 March 1998) Under the Treaty, the Council, not the EMI,l is competent to harmonize the denominations and technical specifications of euro coins (Article 105a(2) of the Treaty). In completing the cooperation procedure with the European Parliament, the Council confirmed, on 19 Janua- ry 1998, its agreement on the common position with a view to adopting a Regulation on denominations and technical specifications of euro coins, after having examined the European Parliamentís second-reading amendments. The Regulation will be formally adopted after confirmation of the Member States which are adopting the euro. On the other hand, the decision on the design of the common side of euro coins follows a different procedure: by an intergovernmental agreement all Member States approved, first in the Amsterdam European Council and most recently alongside the Ecofin Council meeting on 17 November 1997, the final design of that common side. The design referred to above shows Spain and Portugal as two separate geographical entities. (98/C 196/168) WRITTEN QUESTION E-0190/98 by Cristiana Muscardini (NI) to the Council (6 February 1998) Subject: Dual citizenship for Italians in Belgium The Strasbourg Convention of 6 May 1963 regulates instances of dual citizenship and, in practice, provides for the reacquisition of citizenship even when it has been given up voluntarily, since it establishes that the various positions set out in international agreements remain unaffected. Thus the Protocol to the Strasbourg Convention has, for example, made the agreements between Italy and France and Italy and the Netherlands, which allow dual citizenship, operational. In order to remove the obstacles to freedom of movement and ensure the free movement of citizens, can the Council introduce the appropriate measures to extend the Strasbourg Protocol to cover the European countries in which there are large numbers of Italians? Can it also, in view of the sizeable Italian community in Belgium, extend the Strasbourg Protocol, as a matter of urgency, to relations between Belgium and Italy, so as to allow the Italians living in Belgium who want to complete the formalities for reacquisition of their original citizenship, to do so, whilst keeping the Belgian citizenship which they acquired by means of voluntary naturalization?