Here is what I said today, more or less, during the public session of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee to discuss a proposed Cultural Property Agreement with Romania, and renewals with Albania and Nigeria.
Thank you for this opportunity
to speak on behalf of the small and micro businesses of the International
Association of Professional Numismatists, including IAPN member firms in both
the US and European Union.
IAPN has submitted detailed comments on the proposed CPA
with Romania and the renewal with Albania along with a short comment on
Nigeria. First, let me highlight a few issues related to Albania and Romania. The Albanian comments point out that the
current grossly overbroad designated list ignores the extensive numismatic research
IAPN provided about the broad circulation of Illyrian coins and that the
“circulated primarily” standard referenced in current restrictions fails to
provide importers with the fair notice required under 19 USC Section 2604 as to
what coins are actually covered. The
Romanian comments similarly discuss that coins that are found in Romania also
circulated regionally and internationally.
It also notes that the Transylvanian coins struck there are neither
archaeological nor ethnological objects, and are more properly considered
“Hungarian” than “Romanian.”
Now let me focus on another important point that has been
raised multiple times before only to be ignored. This issue relates to one of the necessary
findings CPAC must make about “less drastic” measures under 19 USC Section 2602(a)
(1) (C) (ii) before any import restrictions on coins or other artifacts may be
imposed. In particular, CPAC, the State
Department, and US Customs and Border Protection (CPB) must recognize that any
legal export from one European Union (EU) country is also binding on other EU
members.
Claims
that any CPA is with “Romania” not with the “EU” fall flat when one recognizes
Romania’s own export controls are part of an integrated system that recognizes
the rights of each EU member state to export cultural goods with or without a
permit according to local law.[1]
The applicable provision, Council
Regulation (EC) No 116/2009, and in particular, Article 2.2 authorizes all EU
countries to export ancient and early modern coins that may appear on
“designated lists” for Romania and soon Albania with an export certificate or
without one as objects of limited archaeological or scientific interest. Indeed,
this rule is also consistent with the EU’s recent import controls, which treat all
coins not traced directly to archaeological sites as “low risk” items that only
require “importer’s statements” when they are over 200 years old and valued at
more than 18,000 Euros.
Our
request can be simply accommodated by ensuring Article I of any CPAs with
Romania and Albania make any import restrictions inapplicable to cultural
objects legally exported from another EU country, with or without a formal
export permit as required under local law.
The
ridiculous results likely from not adopting this commonsense proposal should be
obvious. If import restrictions under a
Romanian CPA are applied to the Hungarian or Austro-Hungarian coins that
circulated in quantity in what is now Romanian Transylvania, CBP could detain,
seize and forfeit such coins legally exported from either Austria or Hungary
even though neither country has a CPA with the US and such coins are available
for legal export in both countries. As
an aside, this would be particularly painful for Austrian and Hungarian
Americans who purchase such coins to keep in touch with their own cultural
heritage.
So, yes, CPAC, State Department, and CPB, there is a
European Union that has created a comprehensive system of import and export
controls for cultural goods, and there is no rational basis to contend that it
doesn’t exist. Thank you for listening
to our concerns and please let me know if you have any questions.
[1]
See
Council Regulation (EC)
No 116/2009, available at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32009R0116 (last visited February 12, 2026).
