Spelling stir

Maltese create stir about euro spelling, reports Brussels based EUObserver:

The European Commission has rejected suggestions from Malta that Europe’s common currency should be spelt 'ewro' and not euro. Monetary affairs commissioner Joachim Almunia confirmed the commission’s stance in response to a question by Maltese Labour MEP Joseph Muscat. Mr Muscat argued "that since EU institutions websites refer to the single currency in Maltese as Ewro it should not be a problem to adopt this formulation". He also insisted "that this must be a secondary issue when compared to more important economic convergence problems."

But as reported in the Times of Malta, Mr Almunia that EU leaders in December 1995 agreed that the currency should be named euro in all official languages of the EU, and in spite of different alphabets. He also said that this decision was also reflected in the amendments to these regulations in 2005. The issue has created a lot of controversy in Malta during the last months with both the Maltese language council and the academy for the Maltese language insisting that Maltese orthographical rules should be respected. Both these bodies are insisting that the word "ewro" must be used and are encouraging Maltese people to support their campaign. The Maltese government, however, decided that officially the word euro will be used...