EU citizens to choose new euro coin design

The design of the back of this coin will be selected by the people of Europe since the people of Europe are the ones who use it, said a commission spokesperson.

The website of the European Commission's directorate general for economic and financial affairs now includes a special "Commemorating Ten Years of EMU" section, in which citizens and residents of any EU state can vote.

They can choose from among five different designs pre-selected from a total of 42 designs.

In the end, one of the participants voting for the winning design will be randomly picked and given a set of gold euro collector coins worth "several thousands of euros", the commission said.

All of the proposed coins wear the symbol of the euro - €. One coin shows the Roman figure 'X' standing for ten years of economic and monetary union; or an expanding spiral of ten stars, symbolising "the solidity of the euro after ten years of economic and monetary union," read the descriptions of the coin on the contest website.

The coins have been designed by the European mints and this will be the second time that the same commemorative coin will be issued across the whole euro area – the first time was last year, with a coin commemorating the EU's 50th anniversary.

The voting for the commemorative coin design was launched last week and closes on 22 February.

The EMU was finalised on 1 January 1999, with the euro initially becoming the currency of eleven EU countries - France, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.

Four other states – Greece (2001), Slovenia (2007), Cyprus (2008) and Malta (2008) have joined the euro zone since.

The euro is currently the national currency of some 320 out of 495 million Europeans.