Talk:European identity card

Redirect
This is a redirect to the Dutch ID-card (as this was its "old" name). I am not aware of other countries having a card with this name; or of an article on European ID cards, so a direct link (for now)). Should an article focussing on EU identity cards appear, or more countries have been using the name European Identity Card, than a different link or disambiguation is in place... L.tak (talk) 16:23, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

EEA?
How will the EEA countries have it? Mainly Norway which recently introduced national identity cards. They can't have the EU flag on the front side, can they? Article 3 says "The identity card shall contain, on the front side, the two-letter country code of the Member State issuing the card, printed in negative in a blue rectangle and encircled by 12 yellow stars." But Norway is not a Member State, still the regulation is valid for EEA.--BIL (talk) 17:16, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Not sure if they *can* or not, but I wouldn't expect most Norwegians (or those from Iceland or Liechtenstein) to want to have an EU flag on their ID card. When EU law is incorporated into the EEA agreement, references such as "Member States" includes the EEA countries. It remains to see if the ID card regulation is amended when (/if) incorporated into the EEA agreement or not. There are precedent for both EEA countries to issue documents with the EU flag, and without (i.e the regulations/directives are amended before incorporated in the EEA agreement) (see examples below). Europalov, a Norwegian website following the decision-making processes on matters relevant to the EEA and the (Norwegian/Icelandic-EU) Agreement on the Schengen co-operation states that "Red. anm.: Forslaget er merket "EØS-relevant tekst" av Kommisjonen, men henviser også til Schengen-samarbeidet. Forslaget er hjemlet i artikkel 21, som ikke er speilet i EØS-avtalen." (Editors note: The regulation has been identified as EEA-relevant by the EU Commission. It also refers to the Schengen cooperation. The legal basis rely on Article 21 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, an article which is not reflected in the EEA Agreement.) The page also states that the regulation is currently being considered for EEA relevance and incorporation by the EEA countries.

The EEA countries does print their country code inside the EU star on some documents, such as the EHIC (see Norwegian example). Their residence cards are the same as in EU countries, featuring the stars in the kinegram (see Norwegian example), and their (Schengen) visas contain the "EU" code inside the circle of stars (see Icelandic example). So no adaptions has been made for the EEA countries here. (however, the Schengen border code states that "No logo is required for Norway and Iceland" on the "EU/EEA/CH" lanes at border crossing points. As far as I know, at least in Norway, the EU stars surrounds the "EU/EEA/CH" on border crossings (such as in airports) just like in EU countries, even tho the logo is not required).
 * EU pet passports are issued in Norway (see example), but the words "European Union" on the cover are replaced with "European Union/Norway" and the EU flag may (but don't have to) be supplemented with a Norwegian flag. This is because the regulation (576/2013) was amended when incorporated into the EEA agreement.


 * Driving licences issued in Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein however does not include the EU flag (see Norwegian example). Directive 2006/126/EC was amended before it was incorporated into the EEA agreement and says "The provisions of the Directive shall, for the purposes of this Agreement, be read with the following adaptations". One of the adoptions is that the distinguishing sign (such as "N" for Norway) shall be "encircled by the ellipse referred to in Article 37 of the U.N. Convention on road traffic of 8 November 1968" instead of being printed inside the circle of stars. For driving licences I guess this was a more obvious adaption as the ellipse was "standard" on driving licenses in most countries already (as it stems from the Geneva and Vienna conventions).

Megyeye (talk) 19:46, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Doubts on the existence of the European id card
There is no evidence of an European identity card. Citations in the article just point to old proposals of setting up an European identity card, but what was decided with Regulation (EU) 2019/1157 is only a set of rules in order to harmonise all the id cards across the EU. We might talk about the European id card as a 'model' or, better, as a new 'minimum standard'. The idea of an actual European identity card can be very misleading and even because it is not issued by the European Union itself. Any country of the Union can decide to issue it (or not) in accordance with own national laws, in many ways and for different reasons/purposes. They are 'national' cards (not European) and, indeed, are seen like 'national' also outside EU/EEA according to the own nationality. In my opinion, a better approch to the issue could be what was done in the article of the Passports of the European Union, that is the new national identity cards of the Union will share a common format to improve security across the EU (without explicitly mentioning the European id card). Last but not least, the article of the National identity cards in the European Economic Area will soon look like a clone of this article. Maybe putting all the efforts only for one article (and pointing the other one to this one or vice versa) could be a better choice and less confusing. --Kroby36 (talk) 19:02, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, you are right. There is legally speaking no "European identity card". There will be some common rules on the design of national identity card from 2 August 2021, but it does not mean that there will be a European identity card. I think there is a misunderstanding here. I would suggest to just merge this article with National identity cards in the European Economic Area (which by the way should be renamed "National identity cards of the European Union" since it is EU rules that are discussed - they just happen to also be applicable in Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein through the EEA agreement). On the other hand, there is an article named European driving licence, even though there is no uniform European driving license either. In any case, whatever name we agree on, this article should definitely be merged with the one on national identity cards as they describe exactly the same set of documents. --Glentamara (talk) 14:48, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Merger proposal
As we have discussed above, there is no such thing as a "European identity card". The new regulation that enters into force on 2 August 2021 contains some common provisions on the design of the national identity cards, primarily to increase the security of the cards. It does not introduce a common identity card. Similar to, e.g., passports, it is still up to every member state to decide about the exact design, under what conditions the identity card is issued etc. We should not invent our own concepts, which the author of this article has done. The content of this article should be merged into the article on national identity cards in the European Economic Area. --Glentamara (talk) 20:19, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Author here. I agree that the two articles need to be merged. I disagree that there is no such thing as a "European identity card" - I strongly believe the European driving licence (a terminology that wasn't used by any EU-related entity until 6 May 2021 in a Commission study prefaced with "The opinions expressed in the studies are those of the consultant and do not necessarily represent the position of the Commission.") set precedent with regard to common formats of identity documents issued by the members states of the EU. The driving licence directive also sets out general design guidelines while leaving out issuing conditions and which vital records to display on the document (some Nordic driving licences don't display the place of birth) to the member states. Some EU driving licences feature barcodes, others chips, whereas every member states are mandated to issue EU identity cards conforming to the new, unified security guidelines (secure biometric microchip). I therefore propose that we merge the content of National identity cards in the European Economic Area into this article upon the expiry of the 2 August 2021 deadline. Edelsmann (talk) 16:42, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I'll add that "European identity card" is a widely used term in many European countries, including Spain - where it's the new document's government-sanctioned official title, France and Germany . Edelsmann (talk) 17:12, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
 * 1. In fact, there is a common model for driving licenses, the so-called community model (see article 1 in directive 2006/126/EC). By contrast, there is no common model for identity cards, nor will there be one after the new regulation has entered into force on 2 August 2021. In fact, the Commission clearly stated in their proposal for the regulation that complete harmonisation would not be proportionate and that the proposal only aims at ensuring minimum document security standards. Moreover, national identity cards or national ID cards is what the Commission itself calls the ID cards that are subject to the provisions of the regulation. All in all, the situation for the national identity cards is not analogous to driving licenses, but to passports, for which there are also common security standards. However, we do not talk about "European passports" as a thing, but instead we have an article about passports of the European Union. Similarly, we should keep the article about national identity cards in the European Economic Area and not invent a new concept – European identity card – that is not well established.
 * 2. I am not convinced by the newspaper references you provide. First of all, they are all non-English. Second, I think you have to take newspaper articles with a huge pinch of salt. For instance, I could easily find some newspaper articles talking about "EU passports", but that does not mean that EU passport really exists as a type of document. As far as I understand, the reference to the Spanish government's website rather contradicts your claim. It says that the new Spanish identity card will include the phrase "National identity card" in English. I also want to point out that the term "European digital identity", that was recently proposed by the Commission, is something completely different.
 * 3. We should not invent our own terminology. Let's merge this article into national identity cards in the European Economic Area. If European identity card would become a well established term, then we may reconsider a move in the future. --Glentamara (talk) 18:52, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
 * One more point: Even in the regulation itself, the term "National identity cards" is used (see e.g. the title of Chapter II in the Regulation) and not "European identity card". I think that settles the issue. --Glentamara (talk) 18:57, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree. Two articles are about the same topic. It nees to be merged under "National identity cards in the European Economic Area" title. Dima1 (talk) 14:36, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I totally agree with user Glentamara. Sometimes journalists use words or expressions just to simplify the understanding of an argument: this does not mean this terminology is right and/or spread in this or that country. Moreover, proposals of an European Identity card still remain proposals as long as a law will expressly talk of it. On Wikipedia, any random reader should understand what actually exists clearly, not what is supposed to exist. --Kroby36 (talk) 14:49, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Lots of good points were raised and consensus is clear. Voting to merge under National identity cards in the EEA. Edelsmann (talk) 21:03, 7 June 2021 (UTC)