#9066: Territory code request for Abkhazia

[Philippe Verdy]

2015-11-19 1:28 GMT+01:00 Mats Blakstad <mats.gbproject at gmail.com>:

> As far as I know CLDR does not follow ISO 3166-1 code elements on several
> other issues than Kosovo.
>
> Ascension Island (AC)
> Clipperton Island (CP)
> Diego Garcia (DG)
> Ceuta and Melilla (EA)
> Canary Islands (IC)
> Tristan da Cunha (TA)
>
> These codes have their own territory code within CLDR, but as far as I can
> see these are not valid ISO 3166-1 codes.
>

However these codes have an exceptional reservation in ISO3166-1 because
they were requested by other international standards (notably for postal
and telecommunication standards by UPU and ITU, or by WIPO). These codes
are listed in an annexe of ISO 3166-1 and are "de facto" standardized, but
their usage is limited in time and normally applicable to the domains
covered by these other standards that want to interoperate with ISO 3166-1
using specialized exceptions instead of the formal ISO 3166-1 codes (GB for
AC; FR for CP; IO for DG; SH for TA; ES for EA and IC).

The same remark applies to EU (European Union), frequently used as well by
other economic unions in Europe when they are partners to the same treaties
or cooperations and then apply the same economical or legal framework, and
for those domains, the EU code is also used in Switzerland, Liechtenstein,
Norway and Iceland even if they are not formal members of the EU. It
is even sometimes extended for more limited cases to Monaco, Andorra,
Vatican and San Marino, or to EU candidate countries that have chosen to
rule their economical interests in cooperation with the EU or that are
preparing their possible future integration in the EU.

Kosovo remains special (even if it has been recognized by most EU members),
but only because it locally uses the Euro and not the Serbian currency
(under a ratified international treaty, whose the EU and Serbia are both
parties, along with the UN mission and the local government of Kosovo).
Kosovo is still formally part of Serbia (which is still not a EU member but
a candidate) and not a full member of the Eurozone.

IMHO, for most localization purposes, the EU code should not be extended
and should only cover the 27 members.

But note that some parts of these 27 countries are not part of the EU
territory (e.g. the French "Overseas Collectivities" are not part of the
EU, except Saint-Barthélemy and Saint-Martin which were separated from the
French "Overseas Department" of Guadeloupe but chose to remain in the EU),
even if all their inhabitants are EU citizens (e.g. Northern Cyprus,
British Sovereign Bases, Groenland) and can vote to European elections.
Gibraltar is frequently included in EU even if it is not formally part of
UK territory, but generally considered part of the EU territory as it is in
the same custom union (Gibraltar citizens are also full citizens of UK,
they vote in in the European elections with Southern England). But for most
uses (including localization needs) the EU code include those remote parts
of any one of the 27 members; if those parts have a ISO3166-1 assigned code
(or one of the extensions you list above), you can still create exceptions
in your data to this default inclusion by specializing locale tags for them.
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