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  • BCE: French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish

    • ECB: Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Latvian, Lithuanian, Slovak, Slovene, Swedish

    • ЕЦБ: Bulgarian

    • EZB: German

    • EKP: Estonian, Finnish

    • EKT: Greek

    • ESB: Croatian

    • EKB: Hungarian

    • BĊE: Maltese

    • EBC: Polish

  • the symbol © indicating copyright protection.

Design elements:

Initials of the European Central Bank in five linguistic variants - BCE, ECB, EZB, EKT and EKP for the first series and in ten linguistic variants for the second series:

Banknotes

Signatures:

Each banknote bears the signature of either Willem F. Duisenberg, Jean-Claude Trichet or Mario Draghi – the first, second and third Presidents of the European Central Bank respectively. These banknotes are all equally valid.

Willem F. Duisenberg                           Jean-Claude Trichet                                    Mario Draghi 

Map of Europe:

The banknotes show a geographical representation of Europe. It excludes islands of less than 400 square kilometres because high-volume offset printing does not permit the accurate reproduction of small design elements. The Europa series has a revised map of Europe, including Malta and Cyprus.

The tiny boxes near the bottom of the banknote show the Canary Islands and some overseas territories of France where the euro is also used.

Architectural images

Banknotes show architectural styles from various periods in Europe's history, but do not show any actual existing monuments or bridges.
Designer Reinhold Gerstetter.

architecture.png

  • €5: Classical

  • €10: Romanesque

  • €20: Gothic

  • €50: Renaissance

  • €100: Baroque and rococo

  • €200: 19th century iron and glass architecture

Country codes on the first series of banknotes

The central bank that commissioned the printing of a banknote (but not necessarily the country of printing) is indicated by a letter or country code preceding the serial number, as shown here:

This particular banknote, bearing the letter 'S', was printed for the Banca d'Italia. The country codes are listed below.

Country codes                                             Printing works and letters                                                

​

Belgium .......Banque Nationale de Belgique     ............Z

Greece   .......Bank of Greece           ................................Y

Germany .....Giesecke & Devrient GmbH (Munich) ..........X

                            Giesecke & Devrient GmbH (Leipzig)   .........W

Spain   ............IMBISA      .........................................................V

France  ..........Banque de France  .........................................U

Ireland ..........Central Bank of Ireland  ..................T

Italy     ............Banca d'Italia      ..............................................S

                            Bundesdruckerei GmbH ................................R

Netherlands .. Joh. Enschede Security Printing BV  ..............P

Austria ..........Oesterreichische Banknoten und

                              Sicherheitsdruck GmbH .......................................N

Portugal ........Valora       ..............................................................M

Finland   .........Not assigned      ..................................................L

                               Not assigned    ....................................................K

                               De La Rue Currency (Gateshead)  ......................J

Slovenia  .......De La Rue Currency (Loughton)  .......................H

Cyprus     .......Not assigned        ...............................................G

Malta    ...........Not assigned       ............................................... F

Slovakia  .......Oberthur Fiduciaire   ....................................E

Estonia   ........Polska Wytwórnia Papierów Wartościowych ..D

Latvia   ...........Not assigned     .............................................C  ¹

Lithuania  ....Not assigned     ..............................................B  ²

                             Not assigned    ...............................................A

Luxembourg  ...................              ...................................        ³

¹  Latvia adopted the euro on 1 January 2014. In future Latvijas Banka has the right to use the letter "C" in the serial number in the event it is allocated any future production of banknotes of the first series. However, the use of that letter is still uncertain; it depends on future production arrangements.

​

²   Lithuania adopted the euro on 1 January 2015. In future Lietuvos bankas has the right to use the letter «B» in the serial number in the event it is allocated any future production of banknotes of the first series. However, the use of that letter is still uncertain; it depends on future production arrangements.

​

³   Uncirculated euro banknotes issued by the Banque centrale du Luxembourg bear the code of the central banks of the countries where the banknotes for Luxembourg are produced.

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