Belgium · Presidency of the Council of the European Union

Issue date11 Jun 2010

Total mintage5,012,000

EU maximum5,000,000

Editions3

Edge lettering2 ★ ★ × 6, alternating upright/inverted

InscriptionEU / trio.be / BELGIAN PRESIDENCY OF THE COUNCIL OF THE EU 2010 / BELGIE BELGIQUE BELGIEN / 2010

DesignerLuc Luycx

mintKoninklijke Munt van Belgie, Brussel

Issue occasion

The occasion is the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2010. The design depicts its logo with the stylised letters “EU” and “trio.be”, surrounded by the inscription “BELGIAN PRESIDENCY OF THE COUNCIL OF THE EU 2010” and the country designation “BELGIE BELGIQUE BELGIEN”. Below are the year 2010, the mint mark and the engraver’s mark; the outer coin ring features the twelve stars of the European flag.

The design

The inner part of the coin shows the logo of the Council Presidency, i.e. the stylised letters “EU” and “trio.be”. Above the logo, “BELGIAN PRESIDENCY OF THE COUNCIL OF THE EU 2010” (Belgian EU Council Presidency 2010) is engraved in a semicircle, and below it, also in a semicircle, the country designation in three languages, “BELGIE BELGIQUE BELGIEN”. The year 2010 is centred below the logo, with the mint mark on the left and the engraver’s mark on the right.

The outer ring of the coin depicts the twelve stars of the European flag.

Background on the topic

The Council of the European Union (Rat der Europäischen Union) is the body in which the ministers responsible for specific policy areas of the member states meet and adopt legislative acts together with the European Parliament. It must not be confused with the European Council (Europäischer Rat) of heads of state and government. The Council presidency rotates every six months among the member states. The presiding country chairs most ministerial meetings and working groups, coordinates negotiations, and mediates between national positions and with other EU institutions.

Belgium held this task from 1 July to 31 December 2010. In doing so, it worked with Spain, which had held the presidency in the first half of 2010, and Hungary, which followed in the first half of 2011, in an eighteen-month trio presidency. This is referred to by the component “trio” in the logo. The cooperation was intended to ensure more continuous political planning across the individual six-month periods.

The Belgian presidency took place during a period of institutional and economic reorganization. The Treaty of Lisbon (Vertrag von Lissabon) had only entered into force at the end of 2009; several of the procedures and offices provided for in it still had to be integrated into the Union’s practical work. At the same time, the consequences of the financial and sovereign debt crisis occupied the member states. The agenda therefore included, among other things, stronger coordination of economic and budgetary policy, supervision of the financial markets, and implementation of the European growth strategy “Europe 2020”.

Domestically, the Council presidency took place under unusual conditions. Following the Belgian parliamentary election in June 2010, it was initially not possible to form a government. The caretaker government nevertheless continued to lead the presidency; numerous organizational and diplomatic tasks were carried out by the administration and the ministers responsible for the relevant policy areas.

The issue of a commemorative coin thus referred to a clearly time-limited European task undertaken by Belgium. Member states had repeatedly used such presidency periods as an occasion to make their participation in the institutions of the European Union visible on a coin circulating throughout Europe.