Maria Callas or Martin-Pêcheur? The European Central Bank (ECB) will soon have to choose which theme will inspire the illustrations of future tickets in euros. Friday, January 31, she announced that she would launch a drawing competition in the second quarter, the results of which will be submitted in 2026 to her council of governors, so that he settles definitively between “European culture” and “rivers and birds”.
This process, which began at the end of 2022 with the launch of public consultations, will only succeed “Several years” After this choice in printing new tickets, called to replace the 29 billion tickets in circulation today, of a total value of more than 1,500 billion euros.
The two themes in competition to succeed the reasons of the current series, “epochs and architectural styles”, are supposed to celebrate a common heritage, and to erase geographic and political borders as much as possible. Because the exercise is necessarily delicate: the ECB emitting only six different tickets (5, 10, 20, 50, 100 and 200 euros; the original “500 euros”, accused of facilitating traffic and laundering, is no longer Printed), it is impossible for him to include on his tickets the 20 countries in the euro zone.
It is for this reason that the current tickets of the series “Epoques and architectural styles” represent no monument or existing bridge. But, the exercise being difficult to repeat to illustrate the theme of European culture, the central bank has retained six personalities whose itinerary it highlights and fame without borders, from the singer Maria Callas to the novelist Miguel de Cervantes, Passing through the scientist Marie Curie (whose portrait appeared on a ticket of 500 French francs, before the transition to the single currency), the painter Léonard de Vinci, the composer Ludwig Van Beethoven and the pacifist Bertha Von Suttner.
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Source: Lemonde