FIP and ECOWAS

This beginning of the year is very quiet. Next to the early Chinese New Year stamps involving China PR, Hong Kong and Macao, only two omnibus series where initiated, one related to the centenary of the FIP, the other to the 50th anniversary of the ECOWAS.

On February 6, 2026, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates issued similar stamps to celebrate the centenary of the ‘Federation Internationale de Philatélie’ (FIP – International Federation of Philately) with a design based on the FIP logo. This two first issues coincided with the Dubai 2026 World Stamp Exhibition, the first world exhibition celebrating this FIP centenary. Apparently other countries will participate – actually all countries could participate – and so far the following have already announced it: Bosnia Herzegovina (June 16, 2026), Serbia (), Brazil (June 18, 2026) and Bosnia Herzegovina (Serbia) (October 9, 2026). We do not know if these stamps will be of the same design. Romania already issued a stamp on February 26, 2026, but with a completely different design, so, not part of the joint issue (the FIP logo appears in the margin of a souvenir sheet).

On February 12, 2026, the ECOWAS countries came together to issue a commemorative stamp at the occasion of the 50th anniversary of its creation (which actually took place on May 28, 1975). ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States, also known as CEDEAO in French and Portuguese) includes today 12 countries. All 12 countries participated to the issue with identical stamps bearing each a QR code to access further information. A 3×4 sheet bearing the 12 different stamps was issued at the same date, so including Benin – Cape Verde – Gambia – Ghana – Guinea – Guinea-Bissau – Ivory Coast – Liberia – Nigeria – Senegal – Sierra Leone and Togo. This information was provided by Kenneth Sequeira (Dubai). We now have to find information for all individual countries which remains always complicated for African countries.

Illustrations of the stamps to be released by Japan on April 26, 2026 in a joint issue with Singapore and of the Indonesia stamps to be relased jointly with Uruguay (date of issue still unknown) became already available thanks to Kenneth Sequeira, Dubai.

Enzo Cafaro (Italy), provided also the illustration of the future Europa stamp to be released by Armenia (exact date of release still unknown). In the meantime, some countries have already issued their 2026 Europa stamps or shown the future design: Aland (May 8, 2026), Belgium (April 13), Finland (May 6), Guernsey (April 1), Liechtenstein (March 2), Monaco (May 9) and San Marino (March 2).

Among the other interesting information, one has to note that Denmark has decided, from January 1, 2026 on, to dismantle the Post, which has for consequence that all post boxes have been removed and that this country will not issue stamps anymore. The postal services are taken over by private companies from now on (which apparently will not issue stamps, but work with labels and QR codes only).

PAPU 2023

Our friend Med Achour Ali Ahmed (Algeria) was the first to report about this unexpected joint issue: The 41st ordinary session of the Board of Directors of the Pan African Postal Union (PAPU), a specialized agency of the African Union responsible for the coordination and development of postal services in Africa, took place between August 24 and 30, 2023 in Arusha, the Tanzanian city. This meeting was followed by the festivities linked to the inauguration by President Samia Suluhu Hassan of the new PAPU headquarters called “PAPU Tower” on September 2, 2023.
To mark the commissioning of this emblematic 17-story building, PAPU proposed the issue on this date of a common commemorative stamp “presenting the image of the PAPU tower, juxtaposed with an emblematic place, an artifact national or natural at the choice of each participating Member State”.
The Tanzanian Post was the first showing the design of its stamps and souvenir sheets that were issued on September 2, 2023. At the same time we learned about the first stamps issued by other countries including so far Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and Zimbabwe. As the PAPU involves 45 countries, there are high expectations that other African countries will join over the following weeks. So, at this stage, we just confirm that this issue has to be considered as a Twin issue under the entry code T20230902. Additional countries will be reported later in the catalogue and for the time being we are just providing illustrations from the first identified products.