Of Soup, Stamp Booklets and the European Union

Funny how you can start out talking about a commemorative stamp -- the "Borsch" stamp, for example -- and you wind up on other tangents. I wanted to write a bit about the publishing of stamp booklets, which are a sort of miniature album. But the Borsch booklet is also part of the so-called "Europa" series, and I want to explore that, too.

Europa

According to PostEurop, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the performance of the European postal sector:

"Europa stamps are special stamps issued by European postal administrations/enterprises under the aegis of PostEurop and which have Europe as their central theme. Europa stamps should underline cooperation in the domain of posts, particularly as regards the promotion of philately and contribute to making the public aware of common roots, culture and history of Europe and common goals."

Every year, Europa stamps are included in a theme decided on by PostEurop. This year's (2005) theme is "La gastronomy."