Bureaucratic nightmare: France destroys millions of Euro coins after new design found not compliant with European Commission

On January 12, 2024, a story on Politico broke that the Monnaie de Paris, caught in a rare instance of dancing with two left feet, created 27 million new 10, 20, and 50-cent coins in November before asking the European Commission for design approval. Under the condition of anonymity, a French economy ministry official noted that while the Monnaie de Paris “informally” contacted the Commission in November, it did not wait for the final OK by the Commission to approve the design. Both Commission spokesmen and Monnaie de Paris spokesmen appear to be reticent to comment on the matter, hence the aforementioned reliance on a source of anonymity.

The Commission discovered that the way the stars of the European Union flag were depicted on the new French coins was not compliant with its stringent standards. While this is a matter of stress for many mints, errors with stars are often a focus for “cherrypicking” in coin collecting, which is the art of utilizing specialized knowledge regarding coin varieties and errors and a keen eye to find the extraordinary in the otherwise ordinary to the untrained observer. However, it is quite clear that this error was not subtle.

The same anonymous source reiterated that the Monnaie de Paris was “an autonomous public company and not part of the French administration.” In short, the Monnaie would alone and entirely bear the cost of reminting the coins to the Commission’s standards. Collectors of mint error coins might be aghast after seeing the Monnaie de Paris choose to melt down these coins and absorb the cost directly, as opposed to selling them as a novelty to raise funds. It is possible, however, that such an action would not be permitted by the European Commission as well, showing the true cost of too much oversight.

To read the entire story by Giorgio Leali on Politico, please click here.