Slovenia

Euromed 2025

by Richard Zimmermann

The 2025 EUROMED issue is dedicated this year to European resources. Almost full freedom was given to the postal administrations to design their stamps, and, as a consequence, individual stamps describe very different topics including national parks, natural (local) or energy resources (wind and sun), landscapes, food, crafts or access to raw material (e.g., salt), with Türkiye showing in a souvenir sheet all possible country resources. So far, 14 countries have released their stamps with the most ciommon date on July 14, 2025. Those countries include: Bosnia Herzegovina (July 10, 2025), strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) derived products, preserves, jam; Croatia (July 14), the Neretva Delta; Cyprus (July 9), wind turbine; Egypt (July 14), energy, oil, sea resources; France (July 11), sea and shore; Greece (July 7), sea sponge (Spongia mollissima) and boat; Malta (July 9), sculptor and building; Montenegro (July 14), Ulcinjska Solana (Ulcinj saltworks); Morocco (July ?), natural resources, “Cap des Trois Fourches” (Cape of the Three Forks), Ramsar wetland; Portugal (July 10), carob collecting and salt harvesting; Slovenia (July 11), karst edge; Spain (July 8), flower (Paeonia cambessedesii), Balearic peony; Tunisia (July 7), Galite and Zembra national parks; Türkiye (Turkey) (July 7), landscape with different resources.

The Euromed association includes also Albania, Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine. With the exception of Albania which always issues their Euromed stamp with a delay of one year, there is limited chances that one of these other countries will participate this year, but who knows?

Information was mainly provided by Med Achour Ali Ahmed (Algeria) and Enzo Cafaro (Italy). Thanks to both of them.

Gorizia and Nova Gorica

by Richard Zimmermann

This is a long time announced joint issue, postponed several times, but only recently proven to be part of a twin issue, when the Italian stamps’ designs became available. The stamps involving Slovenia and Italy were originally planned to be issued on April 28, 2024, then postponed to January 25, 2025, before finally being issued on February 6, 2025.

Nova Gorica is a town in western Slovenia, on the border with Italy, created through the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty that established a new border between Yugoslavia and Italy, leaving nearby Gorizia outside the borders of Yugoslavia. Hence, Gorizia is the older part of the city, located now in Italy. Both cities have been designed Capital City of the Culture 2025, celebrated by this joint issue. Both countries have issued a souvenir sheet with two stamps showing each one city with, for Gorizia, an aerial view of the Castle, a fortification dating back to the 9th century, built on the hill overlooking the city, and, for Nova Gorica, the facade of the Palazzo della Stazione, the oldest public building in the city that stands out on Piazza Europa, built in 1906 for military purposes on the Vienna-Trieste railway line.

UPU 150th anniversary

by Richard Zimmermann

The Universal Postal Union (UPU) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that coordinates postal policies among member nations and facilitates a uniform worldwide postal system. It comprises 192 member states and is headquartered in Bern, Switzerland. It was established on October 9, 1874, exactly 150 years ago.

Since more than one year, we know that this anniversary will be celebrated with a stamp which common design was proposed by UPU. In the past, the 75th (1949) UPU anniversary was celebrated, but in a non-coordinated way, mainly by colonial entities (British, Dutch and French – D19490704, D19491001, D19491010, D19491018) and the 100th (1974) anniversary with stamps that remained different for all participating countries (N19741009). The same situation happened in 1999, with absence of concertation for the 125th anniversary celebration (N19991009). Eventually, so far, only the 145th anniversary in 2019 (T20191009b) could be considered as a Twin issue.

During this year of 2024, a very large number of countries are participating. In the strict sense, this has to be considered as a true joint issue, even if there was no real cooperation between countries, but a proposal of a design accepted by most of them and translated in a locally adapted stamp, for a large part of them issued at the anniversary date. It is not an Omnibus series, as Omnibus is defined by a central printing, not by the large number of participating countries. The 2024 stamps will be reported in the catalogue as a Twin issue under [T20241009]. It is easily understandable that some joint issues collectors do not integrate such large series in their collection, in the same way Europa-CEPT stamps are not acceptable for them. Each individual collector has to decide on the basis of the following.

In the catalogue, the countries will be divided in subgroups:

  • A: the countries which take the exact original design proposed by UPU and issue the stamp(s) on October 9, 2024 (or actually around this date, plus or minus a week, roughly between October 1 and October 17, 2024), according to the definition of a twin issue [T]
  • B: the countries which take the exact original design but issue the stamp at a different date. It should not be surprising if some countries may issue their stamp in 2025 or even 2026. This is the equivalent of a Concerted issue [C]
  • C: the countries which use only a part of the design, actually integrating only the “150” logo and add some other illustrations. This logo can appear within the stamp, or on the margin of a souvenir sheet or within a label. Those stamps are also considered as twin or concerted issues of Type [T2] or [C2]
  • D: the countries which use a completely different design, but still issue their stamp(s) around October 9, 2024. This is the equivalent of a Parallel issue [P]. In this case, the original logo may appear on the stamp, but at a size that remains smaller than the half of the surface of the stamp
  • E: finally the countries that do not want to stick to design and date, and work on their own, just referring to the UPU anniversary. These countries are simply listed, without details, as they cannot be considered as joint [N].

We will have again to take care of stamps that are created by agencies that are producing stamps for certain countries but which have been given the freedom to issue stamps without a real control from the reference countries. These stamps are easily recognized by the number of stamps issued in a series and they are produced to fool collectors. In order to better identify these stamps and because they remain real stamps but never reach the originating country, they will be reported in the catalogue, but in italics. In the same way, some other stamps such as the French stamp with a full common logo are of private origin (personalized stamp) that cannot be considered as part of this joint issue either. This will be true for any other privately produced stamp from other countries, if any, and also described in italic characters.

The countries for which we already have information are reported below. If a date between brackets is missing behind the country name, this means that this stamp(s) was issued on October 9, 2024. If the content of the brackets remains empty, this means that the exact issue date is not known yet. A large number of images were provided by Enzo Cafaro (Italy). The following list is of course not yet complete.

Countries of type A (Twin [T1]): Algeria – Andorra (French) (October 10) – Andorra (Spanish) – Armenia – Bangladesh – Belarus – Bosnia Herzegovina (Bosnia) – Brazil – China (PR) – Croatia – Cyprus – Dominican Republic – Greece – Guernsey – India – Indonesia – Ivory Coast – Jordan – Latvia – Lithuania (October 4) – Mauritius – Moldova – Myanmar – Paraguay – Peru – Romania – Sri Lanka – Thailand – Turkmenistan (October 8) – Ukraine – United Arab Emirates

Countries of type B (Concerted [C1]): Argentina (August 28) – Azerbaijan (February 1) – Burundi (September) – Central Africa (September) – Djibouti (September) – Georgia (June 1) – Guinea (September) – Guinea-Bissau (September) – Liberia (September) – Mali (September) – Monaco (May 30) – Mongolia (September 25) – Sierra Leone (September) – Togo (September)

Countries of type C (Twin or concerted [T2] or [C2]): Bosnia (Serbia) – Egypt () – France (October 14) – Hong Kong – Hungary (July 24) – Isle of Man (August 30) – Japan – Kyrgyzstan (October) – Luxembourg (September 10) – Macau – Malaysia – Morocco – Pakistan – Portugal – San Marino – Saudi Arabia () – Singapore – Slovenia – Spain – Syria – Tunisia – Türkiye – Uruguay – Uzbekistan () – Vietnam

Countries of type D (Parallel issue [P]): Australia (October 1) – Austria (October 4) – Brunei Darussalam () – Bulgaria – Czech Republic – French Polynesia – Germany (October 10) – Macedonia (North) – Mexico – Montenegro – Qatar () – Russia – Slovakia – Switzerland (September 5) – Tajikistan (May) – Vatican (September 16) – Wallis and Futuna

Countries of type E (not considered as joint): Belgium (June 10) – Serbia (May 25) – United Nations – Geneva (May 30) – United Nations – New York (May 30) – United Nations – Vienna (May 30).

So far, 86 countries are listed above to which one has to add 2 postal authorities that have issued stamps that cannot be considered as joint (Type E – United Nations offices are not taken in account as countries, UPU being a sub-unit of the United Nations). The UPU counts presently 192 members, which means information from 106 countries (!) is missing. Obviously there will be an update of this page. A great help is needed here to recover information from other participating countries. We are also missing better quality images for stamps from Ivory Coast and Ukraine. Thanks a lot in advance for providing name of missing countries, exact dates of issue, and when possible illustrations, printing runs, sizes of panels and by-product lists.

The catalogue pages should be updated within the next week.

Euromed 2024

by Richard Zimmermann

The 2024 Euromed issues were released for most of them on July 8, 2024. The following countries have so far released their stamps: Bosnia Herzegovina (July 10, 2024) – Croatia – Cyprus (July 10) – Egypt () – France – Greece – Malta – Montenegro – Morocco – Portugal (July 10) – Slovenia – Spain (July 10) – Tunisia (July 9) and Turkey (July 7). We are expecting other issues from Albania and Jordan. Jordan stamps have not been seen so far, while Albania stamps are always delayed by one year. Topic is Mediterranean sports and illustrations are different. Thanks to Ali Ahmed Med Achour (Algeria), Don Birschel (USA), Jeff Courtright (USA) for having provided details.

In this series, Ali Ahmed Med Achour pointed also to a printing mistake (error on stamp) on the Egyptian souvenir sheet: The text in Arabic which is supposed to tell “Sports in Mediterranean” and which is correct on the Tunisia and Morocco stamps, is wrong in the Egyptian souvenir sheet. In this case, it has to be translated in “Sport in Euro-Mediterranean”. Below are reproduced the Egyptian souvenir sheet text above the Moroccan stamp text.

As a complement to the Euromed 2023 issue, it is to note that Albania indeed issued its stamps in 2024, exactly on June 6, 2024. Catalogue will be completed accordingly.

Euromed 2023

by Richard Zimmermann

The yearly Euromed issue was released on July 10, 2023 with the common topic “Festivals”. So far, all participating countries have issued their stamps on this same date, with the exception of Tunisia which released its stamps on July 11, 2023. There are 13 countries participating, including Bosnia Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Malta, Montenegro, Morocco, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Tunisia. Other potential countries, having participated to Euromed issues in the past years, could also include Albania, Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Turkey, but no information is available from these countries at this stage.

The scope of festival is quite large and each country selected one specific topic including film, dance, theater, music or photography festivals, but also food, fireworks or even the very specific Moreska Sword Dance Festival.

Poland – Slovenia 2023

by Richard Zimmermann

Poland and Slovenia issued on March 6, 2023 identical stamps honoring Emil Korytko (1813-1839), a Polish ethnographer, exiled in Slovenia where he contributed to the translation of Slovene folk songs. Poland stamps became available in miniature sheets of 8 stamps [4×2] while Slovenia produced miniature sheets of 16 stamps [4×4]. The stamp represents a silhouette of Emil Korytko with handwriting in the background (information was first provided by Janko Stampfl, Slovenia).

Euromed stamps 2022 now available

by Richard Zimmermann

Don Birschel (USA) collected all information relative to the Euromed 2022 stamps, topic submarine archeology, which started to appear at different countries’ post offices since July 8, 2022. The collection is not complete yet, but he was able to provide most of the illustrations of the following countries:

Croatia (July 11 – 1 stamp, issued 30,000; ancient city of Pula-Pola, amphitheater) – Cyprus (July 11 – 1 stamp) – France (July 8 – 1 stamp, [5×3], 495,000; West Giraglia 2, submarine excavations, Cap Corse) – Greece (July 11 – 2 se-tenant stamps and souvenir sheet with 2 pairs of stamps, as well as a booklet with two pairs; [2px4], [1px2] and [2px1]) – Malta (July 11 – 2 stamps, 100,000 and 30,000; Citadella Victoria, Gozo and Phoenician shipwreck site, Xiendi Bay, Gozo) – Montenegro (July 12 – 1 stamp printed 40,000, in miniature sheet of 8 stamps [3×3] with central label; coin of King Ballaios (2nd century BC) – Morocco (July 11 – 1 stamp; view of Titwan) – Portugal (July 11 – 2 stamps; 2x[5×4], 2×75,000) – Slovenia (July 11 – 1 stamp, ancient city of Ajdovscina; [5×5]) – Spain (July 11 – 1 stamp; [4×4]; 134,000) – Tunisia (July 11 – 2 stamps; [5×4] and [4×5]; child paintings of Tastur and Takruma) – Turkey (July 9).

Although normally issued at time of printing this page, we are still missing detailed information from Cyprus , Morocco, Spain and Turkey. We know that Bosnia Herzegovina will issue its stamp only on November 15, 2022. Eventually, compared to previous years, we could also expect participation from the following countries: Albania, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine.

On top of this, the Albania Euromed 2021 stamps were issued on May 11, 2022. (block of four, issued 4,000, [b4x2]). Albania Euromed 2022 may become available only in 2023.

Mid-year review

by Richard Zimmermann

The release of joint stamps is still affected by the coronavirus pandemic situation and, additionally, more recently, by the Ukrainian-Russian war. The situation of the specific program involving Russia was already reported here. How about the other joint issues?

The Japan – Mongolia issue, 50 years of diplomatic relations, eventually proved not to be a true joint issue. Mongolia released a souvenir sheet on May 19, 2022. For Japan, the date of issue was shifted from originally February 14, 2022 to June 15, 2022 and a souvenir sheet with 10 stamps in a different design was released (information provided by Robert Schrijvers, Mongolia).

The Bosnia Herzegovina stamps related to Family Remittances was issued as planned on June 16, 2022 with a design identical to stamps produced earlier and in miniature sheets of 10 stamps (printing run 1,000 miniature sheets). This stamp will simply be added to the original series [B20200716] which was already filed as a Borrowed Design [B], so not a true joint issue. 2020 Catalogue section has been updated with this information. There is no indication of the issuance this year by another country of other stamps related to this topic so far.

We are still missing information from Turkmenistan related to the Turkmenistan-India joint issue. The Indian stamps were released on April 2, 2022.

The commemorative Brazilian stamp featuring the 100th anniversary of James Joyce’s work ‘Ulysses’ was issued within the Brazilian ‘Diplomatic Relations Series’ and dedicated to Ireland. The stamp was issued as scheduled on June 16, 2022, but not as a joint issue. There is no counterpart produced by Ireland at the same date and this issue can be removed from the catalogue.

In the same way, the Italian – Mexico issue initially planned for July 23, 2022 to celebrate diplomatic relations between both countries will probably not take place. On June 28, 2022, Mexico issued a stamp dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the building of the Mexican embassy in Italy. There are no counterparts reported in the Italian philatelic program and there is a great doubt that Italy will change its program within the next weeks.

The Ecuador-Mexico joint issue in honor of the heroes of independency Leona Vicario and Manuela Saenz was not issued on June 1, 2022, as scheduled. It seems the issue of these stamps will again be delayed, as the date had already been changed twice this year. Any information is welcome.

The Cyprus-Israel joint issue that was once listed on the Israel program has disappeared from this list. No stamp was issued on the originally scheduled date of June 28, 2022.

On the positive side, names of countries involved in the next Euromed issue are now accumulating. The present list of countries having guaranteed participation to this issue include: Bosnia Herzegovina (November 15) – Croatia (July 11) – France (July 8) – Greece (July 11) – Portugal (July 11) – Slovenia (July 11) – Tunisia (July 11) – Turkey (July 9). More are to come and, compared to last year, we could expect participation from the following countries as well: Albania, Cyprus, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Montenegro, Morocco and Spain. The complete list will be published in Volume 15 of the catalogue, after July 11, 2022, the most common and new reference date for this issue. In the meantime, some pictures of the already disclosed projects.

Finally, take a look at this web link of interest, the site of Mark Joseph Jochim, Philatelic Pursuits, which provides information about the stamp issue programs of all countries. It needs to be updated, but it represents a unique and very interesting starting point.

New issues – December 2021

by Richard Zimmermann

Enzo Cafaro (Italy) provided also information about two not yet reported joint issues to be released this year, namely Croatia – Poland on December 2, 2021 and Albania – Slovenia on December 22, 2021. More information to come, but in the meantime, here are the first images from the Croatia stamp FDC and the Albania FDC (out of program issue confirmed by Slovenia). Still no news from the announced Albania – Ukraine issue for 2021.