Paris mint CEO Marc Schwartz gave the order in November to redesign and mint the country’s 10-, 20- and 50-cent pieces. The new coins would be showcased to French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire during a trip to the Paris mint headquarters Dec. 7.
The plans were in place, the invitations sent out, but instead of waiting for the obligatory approval of the European Commission, Schwartz pushed ahead with the minting. E.U. law permits euro zone members to redesign the “national” side of their euro coins every 15 years, but designs require approval from the European Commission, as well as other euro zone governments, which have one week to voice any objections.
Just six days before the planned presentation of the new coins, the design was rejected, saddling the Paris mint with costs of $768,000 to $1.6 million to melt and remint the coins. According to La Lettre, Schwartz said there had been a postponement beyond his control, placing the responsibility for the pricey mishap on the “French State.”
The French Economy Ministry has announced an assessment to understand what happened.
In a statement Friday, the mint said that after proposing a draft design in September 2023, Monnaie de Paris requested approval of the design “in accordance with existing procedures.”
“Given the incompressible production deadlines, the Paris mint had initiated the production of the new coins to ensure the distribution of the new standard coins at the start of 2024, in accordance with what was initially announced,” the mint said. The 27 million coins with the rejected design account for less than 2 percent of the mint’s annual production — a total of 1.4 billion coins in 2023.
