Opinion of Advocate General Jacobs delivered on 9 December 1992

1 Original language: English.

2 The only version of the system placed before the Court is a draft version attached to the Greek Government's observations (Draft International Standard ISO/DIS 843.2). That draft is apparently a proposed revision of a standard adopted in 1968. It is not clear whether the draft has been adopted or not, but it does seem to have been followed by the person who translated Mr Konstantinidis' birth certificate on behalf of the Amtsgericht Tübingen.

3 No explanation has been offered for the use of acute accents instead of horizontal bars. It could be simply that the typewriters or word-processors used by the German authorities, like those at the Court of Justice, have difficulty in writing horizontal bars above letters.

4 Translated from the French. There does not appear to be an official English version of this Convention.

5 The P in Puharés has been written without an acute accent because the word-processors used at the Court are unable to place accents on capital letters.

6 The States in question are Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Turkey; see Bowman and Harris, Multilateral Treaties, index and Current Status, 1984, p. 378 (sixth cumulative supplement, 1989).