50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE EUROPA STAMPS 1956 - 2006

Motifs on the stamps: Re-design of the 1992 stamp with the motif of the 15th century argosy or carrack from Dubrovnik and a new stamp with the motif of airplane-ship – the symbol of the road to the European Community. Motif on the souvenir sheet: Stone squares of the national coat of arms. The first idea about common editions of European postage stamps goes back to the long past year 1952 when, on the wings of the general aspiration for reconciliation and functional joining of the countries of the western part of the Old World, many “Europa” initiatives kept emerging. It was the time when the East had already been detached from the rest of the world by the “iron curtain” (that, in Churchill’s words, had just been dropped from the Baltic to Trieste) and the political project of united Europe that, starting from the ideals of philosophers and harbingers, was to become a palpable political project. One of the fathers of modern united Europe, Robert Schuman, prophetically and unreservedly announced: “Before becoming a military union or economic entity, Europe must be a cultural community”. Though the idea about EUROPA stamps is neither a form of economic nor, even less, a military organization, it has been accepted as a possible medium of wide propaganda manifestation of such a “cultural community”. The result of this has soon appeared on the right-hand upper corners of postal letters from the famous postage stamp series with the identical motif – the building scaffolding that encompassed the “EUROPA” tower designed by the French artist Daniel Gonzague. Accordingly, on the 15th of September 1956, it was the six countries (Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and West-Germany) that started the 50-year long philatelic story. The story that has most often anticipated the gradual, frequently thorny path, the creation of what we presently call the institutions of integrated Europe. Because the same countries that have committed themselves with their stamps in favour of EUROPE signed a year later, on the 25th of March 1957, the watershed document, the “Roman agreement”, the foundation stone of the present-day European Union. In the following four years, by successively publishing postage stamps with the identical motif, the mentioned six countries of the European integration “hard core” had formed principles that would continue in the popular editions of the CEPT stamps – the most interesting collectors’ European project. As a matter of fact, the European conference of postal and telecommunications administrations – CEPT (the acronym derived from the French official title Conférence européene des administrations des postes et des télécommunications) was founded on the 26th of October 1959. As the issuing of common postage stamps has become one of the founding tasks, in 1960 twenty countries opened with their 36 postage stamps the doors of the philatelic “club” that is recognizable by the logotype: For longer than three decades, all over Europe, both eastern and western, these were the most wanted postage stamps for philatelic enthusiasts. A significant new feature was introduced in this period: what was eventually recognized was the monotony of the uniformity of the unique motif which was then changed in 1974, when the postage stamps have started being issued with the generically common theme whereas the solution of the motif was made over to individual countries to decide on the design. This undertaking had resulted in an abundant presentation of abilities of the “cultural community” that Schuman had referred to: at and average some 70 to 80 postage stamps, 35 European countries have yearly come up with autochthonous images of sculpture, painting, handmade artefacts, landscapes, monuments, postal history, folklore – a multitude of themes that could all easily be brought down to a common European denominator. This dynamic continued up to the early nineties, when the attraction of the CEPT postage stamps and the fall of the “iron curtain”, along with the advent of a number of new countries in the East, attracted some twenty new countries and postal administrations to this circle. The logotype CEPT was seen for the last time on the 1992 postage stamps. It was then that CEPT founded its own organization, PostEurop, to which, among other issues, the concern for the Europa stamps was transferred. Next year the stamps were printed for the first time, following all the previous regulations, but with the new logotype: After obtaining independence, Croatia has been gradually becoming member of international organizations, including the CEPT. At the end of September 1992, the former HPT (Croatian Post and Telecommunications) published two postage stamps dedicated to the common theme: the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America. This short series, with the motifs of the Dubrovnik argosy or carrack and the statue of the Indian by Meštrović has soon been re-designed into a new edition: on the 4th of September of the same year, the new series with identical motifs was issued but with the printed CEPT logotype as the visual representation of the newly-acquired membership in this organization. It was the last chance for the Croatian philately to enter the famous sign of the European postage stamps into its “inventory”. The next year, as has already been mentioned, in step with other members we acquired the routine of publishing the agreed common themes of the EUROPA stamps. This most recent edition will evoke the beginnings of the EUROPA stamps (the logotype of the 50th anniversary), their development (CEPT logo) and the participation of Croatia (third reprint of the stamp with the Dubrovnik argosy designed by Želimir Borić). Boris Ljubičić was entrusted with the redesigning and creating of this edition. Applying his characteristic ease of expression, he created and presented the new stamp: a stylized paper aeroplane-ship as the symbol of travelling on this fifty-year long postal and philatelic European journey. By placing them on the squares of the Croatian national coat of arms, in the edition of the commemorative postal block, the already integrated Europe will hopefully recognize at least this contribution of ours.