October 15, 2007
Euro, evro - vat on earth is going on?
For those who admire the European Union’s matchless ability to inject an element of farce into the highest political dramas, the dispute over how to spell "euro" in Bulgarian is a collector’s item. Here we are on the eve of the EU’s vital October 18-19 summit in Lisbon, summoned to put an end to years of agonising over the EU’s internal institutional arrangements, and the question bothering everyone is whether to let the Bulgarians spell euro "evro".
It reminds me of the monumental fuss that broke out in 19th century Austria-Hungary over whether the Habsburg Empire’s central institutions should be called "kaiserlich-königlich" (k-k, imperial-royal) or "kaiserlich und königlich" (k und k, imperial and royal). We all know how that ended - a world war and a 1,700-page novel by Robert Musil.
Bulgaria’s gripe is that the EU’s insistence on transliterating "euro" directly into Bulgarian would make its sound inconsistent with other Bulgarian words about things European. For example, the word "Europe" in Bulgarian is "Evropa" and European is "evropeiski". It’s only sensible that "euro" should be rendered "evro".
Not so, says the EU. A euro is a euro in any language - with a "u", not a "v". Bulgarians will just have live with it.
As one would expect, the European Central Bank has a hand in all this. The ECB regards "euro" as a brand name that mustn’t be tampered with under any circumstances. The fact that Bulgaria’s EU accession treaty uses the word "evro" is neither here nor there. It was a lawyers’ oversight. (Sack them!)
Obviously, Bulgaria was never going to veto the EU’s reform treaty in Lisbon, or even block the EU association agreement with Montenegro to be signed on October 15. In fact, Bulgaria seems happy enough to have secured a declaration by EU ambassadors in Luxembourg to the effect that there is a "technical-linguistic problem" over how to translate "euro" into Bulgarian.
But excuse me. Isn’t that a "technical and linguistic problem"?
Does it really matter how they spell it, as long as they use the proper € symbol ?
Posted by: john somer | October 17th, 2007 at 2:36 pm | Report this commentWe had (have) the same problem in Slovenia and yes, it does matter to some of us how we spell it. We are twisting our language to fit in the EU. Language being one of the main cornerstones of our national identity that we feel particularly protective of. The “you’ll just have to live with it” attitude does little to help.
Posted by: dr.filomena | October 18th, 2007 at 8:30 am | Report this commentAlenka
Yes, actually it really does matter. Slavonian languages, espescially those written in cyrillic script, do not know the “eu”-sound. Thus, as it has to be transformed to cyrillic script anway, why not fit it to the repertoir of sounds the people know?
Posted by: Elusive Space | October 18th, 2007 at 10:19 pm | Report this commentWhen will “FT” change its ironical and dismissive tone whenever it takes on a european issue? Answer : never. In the above case, the problem is real ans substantive. Should the banknotes show a “third” graphic appearance of the word “euro”? Why what has been conceded to the Greeks (check with any euro banknote), should be refused to the Bulgarians? And what next? Once we enlarge to serbia (not today I reckon..) shall we add a new writing (not language)?
Posted by: n.mettra | October 19th, 2007 at 11:15 am | Report this commentSlovenia and Montenegro both use the euro. Surely the name in Bulgaria should be the same as in those two countries. (And the spelling surely the same as the Cyrillic spelling sometimes used in Montenegro.)
OTOH, we are used to some countries having opt-outs over issues of particular importance to them, while other countries don’t have the same privilege…
Posted by: Ed Avis | October 19th, 2007 at 11:20 am | Report this commentThe evro is now accepted by EU and Bulgaria - end of matter; how big a deal is this?
Posted by: susie | October 20th, 2007 at 11:40 pm | Report this commentThe FT; a newspaper of record except if the EU is involved.
And, we oughta ask, when else?
The Austro-Hungarian state didn’t fall out about who was KuK or K.K,; it fell back together on the principle that Austria was Kaiserlich. Koniglich, Hungary was Koniglich, and the federal government was KuK. The row was about entirely different things; important things like money, soldiers, and railways.
Y’know there’s a Cobdengasse in Vienna, as in Richard Cobden; as the spiritual home of free-trading Europeanism in the UK, you ought to deal with your problem.
Posted by: Alex | October 22nd, 2007 at 12:22 am | Report this commentThe word Europe in Greek is written as Ευρώπη, but pronounced (phonetically) “Evropi”. So, even the Greeks pronounce it “Evro” (but write it Eυρώ).
In reply to n.mettra above, note that the Greeks have the rightful privilege in question due to the origin of the word (FYI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Etymology).
Posted by: MD | November 8th, 2007 at 10:09 pm | Report this comment