ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The registration plates in the European Union, or the car plates of the Member States of the European Union, are based on a common format introduced by the Regulation of the European Union (EC) No 2411/98 of the Council of 3 November 1998. According to this regulation, plates must have a blue band on the left of the plate, which presents the European flag with the twelve golden stars together with the international automobile of the State in which the vehicle was registered.

They are also standardized, both on white and yellow background, with black characters.. The plates with yellow background are used in the Netherlands and Luxembourg; in France until 2009 only for the back ones, while the fronts were white. Luxembourg also uses plastic plates, unlike most of the EU, whose current plates are metal. France uses plastic plates or metal plates at the discretion of the manufacturer (in the country the production of plates is not centralized). Denmark uses yellow plates for registered vehicles such as commercial vehicles, Sweden for taxis. Belgium stands out for red characters on a white background.

By convention, previously vehicles had to expose the oval with the international code of the State on the back of the medium when it circulated in foreign countries, but this rule has not always been observed. With the format of European plates, the oval is no longer required, since the national acronym is located directly inside the plate.

Code systems
Several Member States have made efforts to avoid the emission of plates equal to those used in other nations. Despite this, there are however complications due to fines or photos made by autovelox or cameras, for the fact that plates of foreign states can look a lot like plates in use in the Member State in which the law was broken.

Sweden, Finland, Lithuania, Malta and Cyprus use combinations of three letters and three digits. Originally there was an informal way of preventing duplication, at least between Sweden and Finland: Swedish plates started with letters from "A" to "L" (except "I"), while Finland used letters from "T" to "Z" plus "I". Sweden then began using letters once reserved for Finland.
Denmark uses two letters and five digits. The plates are very similar to those of Norway, extra-Community state, but the Danish ones have the red contour. The use of the international car acronym can alleviate the problem, imposed by law by Norway from 1 November 2006 and from Denmark since 2009.
In France, since 2009, a new numbering system has been introduced, of the type "AA-123-AA", similar to that already in force in Italy since 1994; the two systems differ for the number 000 ( absent in France) and the use of some letters,