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Article by Filiz Hyusmenova in Standard Newspaper in Support of the Euro |
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Due to the great interest the Association for Business and Tourist Information has extended the term of the referendum on Bulgaria’s symbol in the EU. There is no better guarantee of a country’s development than active civil involvement. People are who choose; they can show whom or what they trust, thus outlining their common future. That is why this minor fact of extending the vote encouraged me and became the formal occasion to address citizens regarding the Bulgarian transcription of the common European currency – the Euro. I became the 3,511th Bulgarian citizen to support the Petition for preserving the word ‘EVRO’ in Cyrillic in the name of the European currency. Three philologists – E. Stoyanova, V. Petkova, and M. Garistova addressed the Bulgarian MEPs with a proposal that they join the initiative. The petition can be seen at http://www.bgpetition.com/euro-evro-banknota-evrobanknota-kirilica/index.html and join it since it upholds the Slav letters and the Bulgarian national identity. The petition opposes the attempt of the European Central Bank (ECB) to introduce into our speech a word whose phonetic composition contradicts the laws of Bulgarian language. The Institute of the Bulgarian Language and the Economic Institute with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences competently concluded: Bulgarian language and spelling have their own laws and rules that do not allow the form of “Euro.”
I have to mention the efforts of Minister Nikolay Vassilev to convince the ECB in the use of “evro” that have been going on for over a year now (he will correct me if I am wrong). The arguments in favor of “evro” are solid. With Bulgaria’s accession to the EU, Bulgarian language has become an official language. The Cyrillic became the third alphabet in the EU and Bulgarian language became the authentic language of Agreements and is used by EU institutions as an official and working language. The Treaty of Bulgaria’s Accession to the EU reads that Bulgarian language is an essential part of the cultural heritage of Europe and is an original Bulgarian contribution to the linguistic and cultural diversity of the Union. The transcription of Euro as “Evro” has been adopted in the Treaty and has already become established in the modern literary language.
To exhaust the problem, I will quote facts about similar discussion in other EU member countries that use Latin alphabet. In order to protect the respective national equivalent of the word, some new member states have used different arguments: national linguistic traditions or the similarity between the name of Europe and the transcription of the currency typical for the country. Their arguments were not heard by the ECB and the countries have adopted the use of the “Euro” in their official documents.
The ECB rejects the demands for a different transcription of the currency because of difficulties in changing the design of Euro banknotes which must have all possible transcriptions of the word “euro”. It also explains that the word “euro” was artificially created for precisely that reason – so that it be introduced and used by all member countries in exactly this form. The ECB also emphasizes that “euro” does not stem from the British name of the continent – Europe.
According to a regulation of the European Union, the name of the European currency must be identical for all EU member countries, while taking into account the existence of different alphabets. Bulgaria and Greece are the two countries that use alphabets different from the Latin one. Greece has observed this requirement of the ECB because the transcription of the word does not change its pronunciation; however, the word’s transliteration into Bulgarian will lead to violating linguistic laws in pronouncing it.
This is Bulgaria’s position and it is supported by sufficient logical and legal arguments. We, MEPs from the Alliance of Democrats and Liberals for Europe will uphold it through the instruments we have at the European Parliament. Being directly affected and as citizens of the European Union, Bulgarians have the right to address European institutions with a petition. If we believe that Bulgaria’s values are worth protecting and that they enrich Europe’s culture, we can give our vote in favor of this petition.
August 2007
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