EN 
 
 
OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK 
of 21 February 2007 
at the request of the Slovenian Ministry of Finance on a draft law on occasional coins  
(CON/2007/5) 
 
Introduction and legal basis  
On 11 January 2007 the European Central Bank (ECB) received a request from the Slovenian Ministry of 
Finance for an opinion on a draft law on occasional coins (hereinafter the ‘draft law’). 
The ECB’s competence to deliver an  opinion is based on Article 105(4) of the Treaty establishing the 
European Community and the first and second indents of Article 2(1) of Council Decision 98/415/EC of 
29 June 1998 on the consultation of the European Ce ntral Bank by national authorities regarding draft 
legislative provisions1, as the draft law relates to currency ma tters and means of payment. In accordance 
with the first sentence of Article 17.5 of the Rule s of Procedure of the European Central Bank, the 
Governing Council has adopted this opinion. 
 1.
 Purpose of the draft law 
1.1 The objective of the draft law is to align nati onal legislative provisions concerning the issuance of 
commemorative and collector euro coins with  relevant EU legislation, namely Council 
Regulation (EC) No 974/98 of 3 May 1998 on the introduction of the euro2, Council Regulation 
(EC) No 975/98 of 3 May 1998 on denominations and technical specifications of euro coins intended for circulation
3, Commission Recommendation 2003/734/EC of 29 September 2003 on a 
common practice for changes to th e design of national obverse sides of euro circulation coins4 and 
Commission Recommendation 2005/491/EC of 3 June 2005 on common guidelines for the national sides of euro circulation coins
5. 
1.2 The draft law introduces the distinction betw een collector and commemorative coins, whereby 
commemorative coins will be identical to normal 2-euro circulation coins in terms of dimension 
and physical and chemical characteristics, and colle ctor coins will be made out of gold, silver or 
other metals as determined by the Slovenian  government. Pursuant to the draft law, 
                                                 
1  OJ L 189, 3.7.1998, p. 42.  
2  OJ L 139, 11.5.1998, p. 1. Regulation as last amended by Regulation (EC) No 1647/2006 (OJ L 309, 9.11.2006, p. 2). 
3  OJ L 139, 11.5.1998, p. 6. Regulatio n as amended by Regulation (EC) No  423/1999 (OJ L 52, 27.2.1999, p. 2). 
4  OJ L 264, 15.10.2003, p. 38. 
5  OJ L 186, 18.7.2005, p. 1. 
2 commemorative coins will have th e status of legal tender in the euro area Member States, while 
collector coins will have the status of legal tender only in Slovenia. 
 2. General observations  2.1 The ECB welcomes the issue of collector and commemorative coins respecting the individual 
numismatic traditions and practices of the Member States
6. The draft law aims at establishing a 
regime that is compatible with the relevant EU le gislation, and in particular with the requirement 
that issuing coins is subject to the ECB’s prior a pproval of the volume of the issue. Accordingly, 
the ECB has the exclusive right to approve the overall volume of coins, including collector and 
commemorative circulation coins.  
2.2 The ECB would like to draw attention to Decision ECB/2006/19 of 24 November 2006 on the 
approval of the volume of coin issuance in 20077 laying down the approved volume of euro coins 
to be issued by the participating Member States in 2007. Article 1 of this Decision specifies the issuance of coins intended for circulation and issuance of collector co ins (not intended for 
circulation). Therefore, the ECB’s approval for the volume of commemorativ e coins to be issued 
by Slovenia should be sought on an aggregate b asis together with the yearly estimates of the 
volume of euro coins to be issued by Slovenia. 
 3. Specific observations  
Commemorative coins 
3.1 Article 4 of the draft law specifies the main ch aracteristics of commemorativ e coins. In addition to 
the characteristics already set out in this Article, for reasons of legal clarity, the ECB advises rewording the second sentence of Article 4(1) to include the requirement that the national side 
should bear 12 stars surrounding the design and the year mark
8. 
3.2 Moreover, the ECB recommends that Article 4(4)  concerning prior consultation with the Member 
States regarding the appearance of the national side  also specifies that th e European Commission 
should be informed about an intended issue of co mmemorative coins at least 6 months before the 
coins are issued. 
3.3 Article 4(5) provides that ‘[c]omme morative coins shall be sold at a price that may be higher than 
their nominal value. The price of commemorativ e coins shall be determined by Banka Slovenije, 
subject to the consent of the Ministry in charge of finance’. The ECB understands that this Article 
refers exclusively to the sale of commemorative co ins by Banka Slovenije, while such coins will be 
                                                 
6  See ECB Opinion CON/2002/12 of 23 April 2002 at the request of the Finnish Ministry of Finance on a draft proposal 
concerning the issue of commemorative coins in Finland and ECB Opinion CON/2006/22 of 28 April 2006 at the request 
of the Portuguese Ministry of Finance a nd Public Administration on a draft decree-l aw on the issue, minting, putting into 
circulation and marketing of coins. 
7  OJ L 348, 11.12.2006, p. 52. 
8  See Article 3(a) of the Commission Recommendation 2003/734/EC of 29 September 2003 on a common practice for 
changes to the design of national obve rse sides of euro circulation co ins (OJ L 264, 15.10.2003, p. 38). 
3 issued at face value. This means, in particular, that commemorative coins are issued at their face 
value, and any difference in price between the f ace value and the selling price does not have an 
impact on the volume (based on face value) of coins in circulation. 
 
Collector coins 
3.4 Article 5 of the draft law contains provisions  regarding collector coins. The ECB suggests that 
decisions regarding the nominal value of such co ins to be adopted by the Slovenian Government 
ensure that collector coins to be issued fulf il the criteria adopted by the ECOFIN Council of 
23 November 1998 and 5 November 20029. The ECB would also like to  point out that collector 
coins have different visual characteristics than nor mal circulation coins. In this respect, the ECB 
suggests amending Article 5(4) to clarify that the design on the obverse side of collector coins should, at a minimum, differ slightly from the national design for circulation coins and that collector coins should differ significantly from circul ation coins with regard to at least two of the 
following characteristics: colour, diameter and wei ght. In addition, the ECB would like to point out 
that while collector coins will have the status of  legal tender only in Slovenia, the issuing Member 
State, the national central banks of the Eurosystem  should be able to impose certain conditions and 
fees for possible arrangements through which owners of  euro collector coins issued in other euro 
area Member States can receive the face values of those coins. 
 This opinion will be published on the ECB’s website.    Done at Frankfurt am Main, 21 February 2007. 
 
[signed] 
 
The President of the ECB 
Jean-Claude TRICHET 
                                                 
9  Available on the European Commissi on’s website at www.europa.eu.int.