Talk:United Kingdom and the euro

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Where's the design from? 惑乱 分からん 21:01, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

It looks like someone's taken a two-euro coin and edited it, using an image from a UK pound coin. Although it's nice enthusiasm, I don't really think it deserves a place on wikipedia. NotMuchToSay 18:08, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Probably not, better places for such things. 惑乱 分からん 18:26, 2 January 2007 (UTC)


I added a hypothetical Britannia 50c coin earlier today but on second thoughts I've taken it out as you're right, encyclopedias arent for speculation. Could whoever added the 2 Euro coin replace it with a link to their own website? --PRL1973 23:40, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

  • The mock-up of the British euro coin needs an explanation as to who produced it and what sort of status it has. If it has no status and was produced by someone playing with Photoshop then it should IMO be removed. I added a "citation needed" tag. Matt 13:25, 7 May 2007 (UTC).
The image comes from this site. Note that any and all publicly released images of British "Euro" coins are purely speculative and have no official status at all. This particular speculation appears to come from an Italian artist (Frizio). It's hardly the only such design - there are two on that site alone.
British Euro coin designs probably do exist in some back room in the Royal Mint. They have to plan for future demand, so if and when the call comes they can put coins into production very quickly (similarly there will be designs in place with images of Princes Charles and William, already designed, just in case the Queen and/or Prince Charles dies suddenly). But in general it is politically convenient not to make such plans public. They never have and probably never will until they have to.
Strikes me we've had five of us saying we should get rid of it and no-one defending it - seems a reasonable consensus to me, so I'll go ahead and remove it per WP:CRYSTAL. Pfainuk 14:23, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Overstated?

Quoth the article:

...it is possible that the Royal Mint could continue to include the symbols of the home nations on the British designed coinage, although this would have to be included in place of the Queen's portrait.

Um, really? I know it isn't the biggest canvas, to work with, but several Euro coins manage to find room for both a person's portrait and some other recognizable icon on the national side. Particularly on the larger coins, the Queen's head could for instance be in the foreground and some distinctive icon or pattern could be in the background. It'd be tricky, but it could be pulled off. The current wording implies that somehow this is an impossibility. --Jfruh (talk) 00:03, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Crystal Balls

From the banner added today:

Please help improve this article or section by removing speculative content.

Any material on the possible designs of hypothetical British Euro coins is speculative per WP:CRYSTAL because none have ever been officially designed and made public. It is unknown whether the UK will even join the Eurozone. This article has been missing sources for 8 months and I don't believe that material on the subject at hand is verifiable. Thus I have been WP:BOLD and removed that information. Given that the remainder of this article is both:

  1. Not relevant to the article title
  2. Given in much more detail at Enlargement of the eurozone

I propose that this article be redirected there. Pfainuk talk 23:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Good idea! --Kildor (talk) 07:29, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
I disagree. Every country in the union or that uses the euro as a currency has a similar page. We have the same problem with Andorra, Sweden, Denmark, Kosovo, ... etc. I think it is important that people easily know that UK does not use the euro and the reasons behind. The article definitely needs some work, but it will continue to be a stub, like the other articles previously mentioned. Moving the specifics of this article to a bigger place does not make sense to me. I absolutely agree, however, to remove everything of speculative character. Miguel.mateo (talk) 11:28, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
In that case, surely we have a problem with an entire series of unverifiable articles instead of just one? Yes, it's perhaps worth having an article on why the UK (Denmark, Sweden, whoever) do not use the Euro, but this article is supposed to be about the coins that would be issued by the UK if they decided to join the Euro. The article title is inherently speculative and I fail to see how any information relevant to it could be verified.
Almost all of the articles that link to this one do so through the {{euro}} template, which would be easy to alter.
Looking through the other articles in this series, the ones that appear to be in a similar boat to this one (containing no relevant non-speculative material) are Poland, Kosovo and Montenegro. Andorra, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary Romania and Sweden each contain a very small amount of verifiable information relevant to their subjects - and this is likely, I think, to amount to all of the relevant information on the subjects.
Thus it seems to make sense to me that for all of those countries that are not currently in ERM II, plus Denmark with its opt-out and Andorra/Kosovo/Montenegro using the euro without minting their own coins, it would be worth either renaming to x and the Euro or merging the articles into Enlargement of the Eurozone. I will place notes on those talk pages noting this discussion. Pfainuk talk 12:19, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
In case we choose to keep all these articles - which in some cases will be quite, useful, as the coin designs are expected to be made and published in the near future, we should at least rename some of them. An article named UK euro coins is a little odd, especially when it says "there ain't any and there will never be any as long as matters don't change". I'd prefer names like "Denmark and the euro", "Sweden and the euro" etc. Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 12:36, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Agree with Steinbach. Pfainuk: from the angle expressed in your first paragraph, all of the sudden you started to make a lot of sense to me ;) The articles in questions will be created at one point, not knowing for sure when now. So they have been focusing more on the when will that be instead of the coin designs. How about removing all the duplication and speculation in each article and instead put on the top of them a reference to the Enlargement of the Eurozone? Some articles, like Bulgaria, has very valid information that is not related to the Enlargement of the Eurozone but the future design of their coins. Information like this one I think is worth to keep. Miguel.mateo (talk) 12:40, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) OK, can I suggest this as a current plan:

  • Articles for the UK, Kosovo and Montenegro are either renamed to "The United Kingdom and the Euro", "Kosovo and the Euro", and "Montenegro and the Euro". These are the countries that are not compelled to use the Euro as currency and that have never (publicly) moved to design euro coins so articles solely on their euro coins are inherently unverifiable. This way, for the UK, we could switch the detail at Enlargement of the eurozone with the article we have here. Montenegro and Kosovo to start off with would not change. If another country gains a large amount of information regarding its potential entry, then we will have a precedent to start a new article. We could create articles for every relevant non-member's position regarding euro introduction, but I feel this would be excessive.
  • We could - and I think we should - add Sweden and Denmark to that list as well as they are not required to use the euro either (in practice in the case of Sweden) and this might make for more viable articles than articles on euro coins waiting for referendums that might never come. A detailed explanation of Denmark's opt-outs, Sweden's policy re: ERM II and both countries' referendums would be useful material, and hopefully easily referenced. Information on euro coins could then be made in proper context of the referendums that have already taken place.
  • We include at the top of every page of a Eurozone country whose coins have yet to be designed both:
    • The {{concept product}} tag
    • A message of the type:
      This article is about the coins that would/will be used if/when x-country joins the euro. For more information on the process of eurozone membership, see Enlargement of the eurozone
      Using would/if for Sweden/Denmark, will/when for the others and a unique formulation for Andorra. Information regarding future membership of the Eurozone is then kept at Enlargement of the eurozone unless a section becomes large enough to form its own article, and information on the x euro coins series is limited to information on the euro coins - however limited it is, with speculation and duplication removed.
  • In the case of Poland, we'll have to just have an article saying - for now - "Currently, there is no official information on the design process for the national sides of Polish euro coins, though it has been indicated that some kind of public vote will be used." - that's all that page has on the subject of Polish euro coins.

Does that sound generally acceptable? Should we go a bit further? Pfainuk talk 17:48, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Looking through those articles again, I should say that before my edit this one was by far the worst offender for speculation. Still a bit of duplication of Enlargement of the eurozone around though. Pfainuk talk 17:54, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree on that the articles should be renamed. The dablink message is also a good idea, but please leave out the disclaimer-tag. It looks rather silly to talk about euro coins as "conceptual products". And the message provided is just a disclaimer. The articles should be based on verifiable sources, and the text sohuld explain if there is some uncertainity (i.e. decisions yet to be made, pending referendum).

If there is no information available on the design of the polish euro coins, then there is really no need for such an article. "Poland and the Euro" is then a better name if the article should still exist. -Kildor (talk) 20:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Pfainuk, your general idea makes a lot of sense to me, even renaming all articles for currently not designed countries is fine. It is important to remove, in all the articles, all duplication with regards to when will they join the eurozone and make the references to Enlargement of the Eurozone very clear. We should keep in these articles only any valid and referenced information about the coin design. Miguel.mateo (talk) 22:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
OK, all these pages except Andorran euro coins have been moved to x and the euro. Andorra, I think, is a special case because that article is mostly on the coins since Andorra already uses the euro and there's little other detail to discuss. I've also done a superficial edit on the template which should (when it propagates through) change most of the links so they point here. I'd guess the most contentious of these moves is likely to be Bulgaria and the euro since that contains most coin-related info.
At this point, it seems to me that the pages that have been moved can be used for what they've always been used for - that is, information on the prospects of x-country joining the euro. Or if this is unnecessary duplication, they can be deleted. They can be renamed back or (more likely) a new page can be created when designs become known. They still all need a bit of work, which I'll see if I can get back to later (or, naturally, anyone else is welcome to do it!) Pfainuk talk 11:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Scotland

Should there not be a mention of Scotland's desire for independance and, based upon that the wish to adopt the Euro? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.199.148.200 (talk) 16:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. You can easyly edit article and add this information and any other that you think is important. Just don't forget to put references. --Dima1 (talk) 16:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Welcome. As Dima1 says, yes it's perfectly suitable material so by all means add it, but you'll need reliable sources, and this has been a bit of a stumbling block in the past when discussing what would happen regarding the EU if Scotland became independent. On this article, make sure that the information is primarily about the euro - we have Scottish independence which people could go to for background. Pfainuk talk 17:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)