EU 'unlikely' to accept ewro spelling

As all legal texts published since Malta's accession to the European Union refer to the single currency in Maltese as euro it is almost impossible that the term ewro, as proposed by the Council for the Maltese Language, will be accepted, EU Council sources told The Times yesterday.

Apart from the fact that there is already an EU decision that all member states should refer to the single currency as euro, even in their own language, the legal Maltese version of the currency was adopted as euro in the accession treaty, the sources said.

"The accession treaty is considered to be the 'bible' for our translators and lawyer-linguists who translate and revise all the laws and directives issued by the EU into Maltese. If you want to change the wording of the euro you have first to change the accession treaty and this is not normally done," they added.

A few weeks ago the Council for the Maltese Language issued a report recommending that the single currency should be called ewro in Maltese.

The council decision was met with caution by the National Euro Changeover Committee (NECC), which said it was up to the government to decide on the matter. According to EU rules, Malta cannot just decide to adopt a Maltese version of the European currency's name, as is being proposed by the language council.

The EU Council sources said Jurisconsult - the EU's language authority - had instructed all EU translators and lawyer-linguists to continue spelling the single currency in all texts, except Greek, as euro and that member states were not free to use any other term.

In the Maltese version of the draft EU Constitution, the single currency was referred to as the euro.

The government's decision on the issue is expected to be taken shortly.