Europa

designer: Joanna Górska
quantity of stamps: 1
face value: PLN 3
issue: 500,000 pcs
printing technique: offset
size of stamp: 43 x 31.25 mm
paper: fluorescent
selling sheet: 16 stamps
date of circulation: 5th May 2008

The tradition of joint issues of the EUROPA stamps is over 50 years old now. In 1956 six postal operators of the original member countries of the European Union (Belgium, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany and Italy) have prepared a joint issue of the stamp with the word EUROPA in a form of a tower built of its letters. The joint issues have been continued recurrently up to 1973 always with common design with the leading themes such as: Europe, unity and peace, only gradually supplemented with some symbols of telecommunications. Since 1974 only Europe as the leading subject remained, and the stamps are designed by each country individually. The range of possible themes has become therefore much broader, including culture, famous personages, or inventions, but also some more general problems, such as nature conservation or the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America in 1992. The EUROPA stamps should on one side contribute on popularity of the community ideas while on the other side they should help in mutual understanding of the various traditions. Moreover, they underline cooperation of the European public postal operators, particularly in the domain of philately.

CEPT - European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations, an official sponsor of the EUROPA joint issues in the years 1959-92.
PostEurop - Association of the European Postal Public Operators. Exists since 1993 and it takes care about the EUROPA joint issues.