It's euro, not ewro, says EU commissioner

Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joachim Almunia has rejected the suggestion that the European single currency should be spelt "ewro" in Maltese.

Mr Almunia was answering a question in the European Parliament by Labour MEP Joseph Muscat, who argued that the Commission should support the "logical and simple stand" of the National Council of the Maltese Language in favour of spelling the currency "ewro" in Maltese.

Mr Muscat said some of the internet sites of both the Commission and the European Parliament already refer to the currency in Maltese as "ewro".

Mr Almunia however reminded the MEP of a December 1995 decision of the European Council that the name of the EU currency should be "euro" in all the official languages of the EU even when taking into account the existence of different alphabets.

He said this decision was also reflected in recent amendments to the regulations, last amended in 2005.

Mr Almunia said he did not agree with Mr Muscat's argument, adding that last January the Commission had been informed by the Maltese government that the term "euro" will be used in all Maltese legal texts. The spelling of the currency has created a fair amount of controversy. In January, the Cabinet decided that "euro" shall be used in all Maltese legislation and official documents but that the colloquial use of "ewro" in other circumstances would be encouraged.

Both the Akkademja tal-Malti and the national language council have since insisted that the spelling should respect Maltese orthographical rules. The latter says it wants "ewro" to be used in all contexts except legal texts.