Portal:Andorra/Issuing Authority

Andorra is the only country in the world with two foreign post offices in the same country: the French and Spanish postal services.

Although it is an independent state, the country still does not have its own postal service.

These are:


 * La Poste is a postal service company in France, operating in Metropolitan France, the five French overseas departments and regions and the overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. Under a bilateral agreements, La Poste also has responsibility for mail services in Monaco through La Poste Monaco and in Andorra alongside the Spanish company Correos.


 * The company was created in 1991 following the split of the Postes, télégraphes et téléphones (France) (French PTT), a government department responsible for mail, telegraph and telephone services in France. The PTT, founded in 1879, was then divided between La Poste, which became responsible for postal service, and France Télécom (nowadays Orange) for the telecommunication services. France Télécom was immediately privatised but La Poste has remained a public company. However, in 1997 EU directive 97/67/EC required member states to "fully open the postal sector to competition", with the result that the French government allowed private postal service companies in 2005 and transformed La Poste into a public-owned company limited by shares in 2010.


 * Sociedad Estatal de Correos y Telégrafos, S.A., trading as Correos, is a state-owned company responsible for providing postal service in Spain and, due to bilateral agreements, it has responsibility for mail services in Andorra alongside the French company La Poste.


 * The origins of Correos dates back to 1716. The change of dynasty in Spain ended the tradition of giving to some relevant families the duty to take care of the postal services and, on July 8, 1716, King Philip V appointed Juan Tomás de Goyeneche as Chief Superintendent and General Administrator of the Postal Offices, making the postal service responsibility of the State.


 * Correos is one of the largest postal services in the world. Based in Madrid, it has over 10,000 postal centres all over Spain.


 * A royal decree of September 12, 1861 established the Fábrica del Sello as the exclusive printer of Spanish stamps. In 1893 the Fábrica del Sello merged with the Casa de la Moneda to form the La Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre (FNMT) which has printed the stamps of Spain and her dependencies ever since, except during the Third Carlist War and the Spanish Civil War when concurrent issues were authorized by competing sides. Beginning in the 1950s the printer's initials, "F.N.M.T.", began to appear at the bottom of some stamps. Since 1977, the year of issue has appeared on Spanish stamps.