The European Central Bank has unveiled 10 proposals for a full redesign of euro banknotes, the first since the single currency’s paper money entered circulation in 2002. The new notes would still carry the same currency, the same institutions, and the same quiet command from Frankfurt. Only the pictures change.
Money, but Make It European
Christine Lagarde announced the designs last week, and the ECB has split them evenly between five culture themes and five wildlife themes. More than 6 million people voted in a survey within a week of its launch to decide whether the new notes should depict cultural figures or birds and waterways. That public exercise closes on 21 September, but it won’t decide the outcome on its own. The ECB says feedback will feed into the choice, while a second quantitative survey and the verdict of a jury of designers will also shape the final decision at the end of 2026.
The choreography is familiar. Ask the public, then let the institution keep the final say. The combination of the two themes is not expected, so the choice is not really between culture and wildlife as much as between two ways of dressing up the same monetary order. The notes are planned for the €5, €10, €20, €50, €100 and €200 denominations, and they’ll continue to be printed on paper rather than polymer. They’re not expected to enter circulation until 2030 or 2031.
The ECB’s own language gives the game away. Philippe Geoffroy, head of section for new banknotes at the ECB, said: “The feedback from the public has been very clear. They want money that feels European.” He also said: “The main reason behind the re-design is to stay well ahead of counterfeiting. But along the way we want to increase identification with the single currency and make it more graphically meaningful. We want to move away from neutrality.”
That’s not just a design brief. It’s an institutional confession. The bank wants money that feels European, looks more meaningful, and binds people more tightly to the single currency. Neutrality is out. Identification is in.
The EU on the Flipside
The wildlife proposals would show the wallcreeper, the kingfisher, the bee-eater, the white stork, the avocet and the northern gannet, set against different landscapes typical of the continent. But the reverse side matters just as much. Those birds would be paired with pictures of buildings that house the EU’s political, legal and financial institutions in Brussels, Strasbourg, Luxembourg and Frankfurt.
So the banknote becomes a neat little monument to the Brussels apparatus. Birds on one side, institutions on the other. Nature on the front, hierarchy on the back. The ECB says the notes would feature Europe’s wildlife, but the flipside keeps the machinery of continental power in view, from the political and legal centres to the financial ones.
The culture proposals are no less curated. Maria Callas, Beethoven, Curie, Cervantes, Leonardo da Vinci and Bertha von Suttner appear on the front, with public scenes of artistic and intellectual activity on the reverse. The article notes that Callas was born in New York but her career flourished in Greece and Italy, Curie discovered radium and polonium with her husband, Pierre, and her career spanned Warsaw and Paris, and von Suttner spent time in Prague, Tbilisi and Vienna. The ECB is selling a version of Europe assembled from famous names, mobile careers and carefully managed symbolism.
A Survey, Then the Institution
The 10 shortlisted designs came from 1,241 applications to an open call in 2025. The shortlisted creatives do not usually design banknotes, and some of the proposals look radically different from paper money anywhere else in the world. Dutch book designer Joost Grootens has cropped the images of cultural figures tightly around their eyes, accentuating their vision rather than their iconic status. Jan Robert Dünnwelle, a German illustrator, has rendered the same personalities in a free-flowing, sketchy style of a graphic novel. French artist Isabelle Daëron has made the birds fly across a vertical layout rather than the more conventional horizontal one, and Finnish graphic designer Ville Tietäväinen has depicted the birds’ journeys in sequence, progressively moving from the mountains to the sea.
All of that is presentation. The real decision still sits with the ECB, which plans to choose a winner at the end of 2026. The public gets a survey. Designers get a jury. The institution gets the final word. That’s the structure, and it’s not subtle.
The new notes are still years away from circulation, but the ECB is already trying to shape what the single currency feels like. Not just what it buys. Not just what it counts. What it feels like. That’s the kind of language central banks use when they want power to seem like culture and control to seem like design.