TURKEY DISAPPEARED FROM MAP OF EUROPE DESIGNED FOR NEW 1 EURO COINS

PanARMENIAN.Net
26.09.2007 15:53 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkey disappeared from a map of Europe designed
for new 1 euro coins. A common design for the "tails side" of euro
coins is to be rolled out in 2008 with an updated graphic showing an
enlarged EU and new countries, such as Cyprus, that are joining the
single currency.

Papers given to Euro-MPs under Brussels open information rules show
that the European Commission proposed a standard format map of Europe
extending as far as the Caspian Sea and including Turkey.

But, following the intervention of unnamed national governments,
Ankara was short-changed in the final design as Cyprus was moved
hundreds of miles west, to rest near Crete, while Turkey was cut from
the map altogether.

Marco Cappato, an Italian Liberal Euro-MP, is angry that Turkey, an
EU membership hopeful, has been removed from a design that includes
Moldova and Belarus, countries with poor human rights records.

He believes the omission is a deliberate "provocation" by euro zone
members, such as France, who are hostile to Turkish EU entry.

Current euro coins use an accurate map based graphic to depict the
15 countries that were EU members in 1999, before the Union grew to
its current 27 members, Telegraph reports.