This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Belgium has begun minting €2.50 coins marking the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo after France forced it to scrap a €2 coin with the same purpose.



Paris objected to the new Belgian coin, commemorating the French emperor’s defeat by British and Prussian forces, earlier this year, saying it would create tensions at a time when Europe’s unity is under threat.

Belgium was forced to get rid of about 180,000 €2 coins that had already been minted after Paris sent a letter saying they could cause an “unfavourable reaction in France”.

But Belgium has managed to skirt the French protests using a rule that allows eurozone countries to unilaterally issue coins if they are in an irregular denomination.

Napoleon Bonaparte was forced into exile after his grand European ambitions were crushed by the armies of the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard von Blücher at the Battle of Waterloo, which took place on what is now the outskirts of Brussels.

France had said in its initial letter to Belgium that the battle, on 18 June 1815, “has a particular resonance in the collective consciousness that goes beyond a simple military conflict”.

The Belgian finance minister, Johan Van Overtveldt, said the new coins – of which there will be 70,000 – were not being released in a deliberate bid to anger France.

“The goal is not to revive old quarrels. In a modern Europe, there are more important things to sort out,” he said on Monday.

“But there’s been no battle in recent history as important as Waterloo, or indeed one that captures the imagination in the same way.”

The €2.50 coins will be usable in Belgian shops but collectors are expected to snap many of them up. Sold in special plastic bags priced at €6, they show the Lion’s Mound monument that stands at the battlefield, as well as lines indicating the position of the troops.

Several thousand copies of a silver coin – with a face value of €10 but sold at €40 – will also be released.