This meant that experts gathered both physically and others connected virtually for the Jury competition. This year’s European jury composed of eight philatelic experts from various backgrounds including artists, collectors, and bloggers:
- Botond Szebeny, PostEurop, Secretary General, Belgium (Chair of the Jury)
- Guy Coutant, Royal Belgian Academy of Philately, Belgium
- Stefan Klein, Klein und Neumann KommunikationsDesign, Germany
- Olaf Neumann, Klein und Neumann KommunikationsDesign, Germany
- Jürgen Haepers, Blog "europa-stamps", Switzerland
- Eric Contesse, Blog "timbredujura", France
- Marjan Osvald, Pošta Slovenije, PostEurop MAC Chair, Slovenia
- Emile Espen, Post Luxembourg, PostEurop SPWG Vice-Chair, Luxembourg
Each entry stamp was displayed individually. The jury members were able to scrutinize the stamps, taking into consideration multiple design aspects, including the printing and engraving techniques presented to them. The jurors casted their closed ballots in two rounds of voting and selected the Poczta Polska (Poland) stamp as this year's winner.
“This year virtual jury-meeting brought a very high-quality result and five really fascinating stamp designs as short -listed winners of the international competition 2020. As the theme - ancient postal routes, was not an easy task, we were really surprised by the artists solutions. Especially the winning design from Poland with its special proportions in vertical format expressed the theme in a perfect manner – colours and technique of the artwork are really modern and perfect for a small stamp. The same can be said about the other four short-listed winners from Switzerland, Germany, Ukraine and the Faroe Islands. The whole set of the jury’s favourites shows big parallels: The Focus on riding or walking postal couriers or mailmen, the focus on the ”human aspect“ behind the postal delivery system and their adventurous and sometimes dangerous journey in former times convinced us and also the other jury members. Chapeau!” said expert jurors Stefan Klein and Olaf Neumann, our recurring judges from KommunikationsDesign in Germany.
This also marked the first time in the history of the EUROPA competition, that we had three ties for the second prize. They are Postverk Føroya (Faroe Islands), Swiss Post (Switzerland) and SC Ukrposhta (Ukraine). The stamp from the Bundes Finanz Ministerium/Deutsche Post DHL Group (Germany) completed the podium.
“When faced with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Postal operators have been quick to adapt and seek alternative affordable solutions to deliver postal items. In a way, the current theme is most appropriate for these challenging times. As for this year's jury competition, we also had to adapt and find a solution that would allow a fair analysis on the beautiful, depicted entries, without jeopardizing anyone's health or judgement. Hopefully, next year we will be able to gather everyone in our Brussels HQ premises and enjoy some of Europe's greatest philatelic works at its best. Having said this, I would like to congratulate this year’s winners, with special regard to Poczta Polska. I would also like to congratulate all of the designers for their accomplished effort in creating such complex and beautiful designs, as they are making it more and more difficult for the jury to elect the winning stamps” commented Botond Szebeny, PostEurop Secretary General.
Congratulations to all the winners and we look forward to next year’s entries for the upcoming competition, which will have "Endangered National Wildlife" as its theme.
More about EUROPA Stamps
Since 1956, EUROPA stamps have been a symbol of Europe’s desire for closer integration and cooperation. These special stamps are issued by the European postal administrations/enterprises and bear the EUROPA logo, a PostEurop registered trademark. Since 1993, PostEurop has been the responsible organisation for issuing EUROPA stamps and each year, philately experts within the Philately Working Group organize the competition amongst other philately initiatives.
See more information on www.posteurop.org/europa
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For more information, please contact:
Cynthia WEE-NEUMANN
Communications Manager
T: +2 2 773 11 92
cynthia.wee@posteurop.org
André Feio
Communications Assistant
T: +2 2 773 11 54
communications@posteurop.org
POSTEUROP is the association which represents European public postal operators. It is committed to supporting and developing a sustainable and competitive European postal communication market accessible to all customers and ensuring a modern and affordable universal service. Our Members represent 2.0 million employees across Europe and deliver to 800 million customers daily through over 175,000 counters.
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