The Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) has announced the themes European citizens have selected for future euro banknotes: “European culture” and “rivers and birds”.
ECB conducted a survey both offline, with 23,377 European participants, and online, with over 365,000 Europeans expressing their views, in July and August 2023. “European culture” secured the top spot, resonating with 21% of the respondents, followed by “Rivers: the waters of life in Europe”, at 18%, and “Birds: free, resilient, inspiring” at 17%. To reflect the public’s preferences as broadly as possible, the Governing Council gave its approval to combine “Rivers: the waters of life in Europe” and “Birds: free, resilient, inspiring” into a single nature-related theme.
Both of the chosen themes share a common thread of connecting Europe and Europeans, and this is very much in keeping with our goal of making banknotes more relatable to people of all ages and backgrounds.
Christine Lagarde, European Central Bank President
The Governing Council decided to establish an advisory group to propose motifs for the selected themes by the end of 2024. The other proposed themes were: “European values mirrored in nature”, “The future is yours”, “Hands: together we build Europe” and “Our Europe, ourselves”.
“Banknotes are a symbol of our European unity, now and in the future. We are committed to ensuring that everyone can choose how they pay, be it using cash or digital payments,” said ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone.
Now, a competition to design the new banknotes will be held and European citizens will again have the chance to express their preferences on the design options. The ECB is expected to decide on the final designs, and when to produce and issue the new banknotes, in 2026. Once a decision to produce new banknotes has been taken, it will still be several years before the first banknotes are issued.
