The General Postal Union was founded in 1874 through the Berne Treaty, under the attention of Heinrich von Stephen, a high ranking official in the postal administration of Northern Germany Confederation. The act of birth of the Union was signed by the representatives of 22 countries, and Romania was one of them, on October 9th 1874, which became the World Day of the Postal Administration.
From the Romanian side, the foundation signature belongs to the General Director of Posts and Telegraph, George Lahovari.
The Berne Treaty allowed the harmonization of separate postal services networks from a wider territory.
In 1878, the General Post Union changed its name into the Universal Postal Union and in 1948 became a specialized agency of UNO.
With 190 member countries and being in continuous expansion, the Universal Postal Union is the main forum of cooperation between national postal administrations.
The mission of UPU is to find the proper means for developing the quality and the accessibility of the postal services, in order to facilitate communication between people all over the world.
The Universal Postal Union Congress is the supreme authority of the UPU and joins together representatives of all member countries. It takes place once every five years and, in 2004, the honour to host the 23rd Universal Postal Congress goes to Romania. Romania is the first East-European country to host this major event.
To mark the special involvement of UPU in the proper development of the postal activities, Romfilatelia, the specialized company in issuing and trading philatelic items in Romania, releases one issue entitled “UPU Congresses in philately”. Each of the six postage stamps reproduces issues in the “stamp on stamp” system, one of the stamps released by the Postal Administrations that hosted this impressive event, in previous years.
