Apparently they are thinking of replacing the bridges with famous people, and of course the predictable squabbling has already started, why does Beethoven get to be on a Euro note and not Da Vinci? Why Curie and not Cervantes? Is it an insult to France if Beethoven is on the €100 and Curie only on the €10? Blah blah blah.

Spijkenisse has shown the way. The ECB should select, completely at random, some EU town with a population between 10,000 and 100,000, national capitals excluded. Then they should commission designs of that specific town's notable buildings or local scenery.

For example, suppose Velenje, Slovenia was selected. The €200 could bear a picture of Velenje Castle. The €5 could depict the church of St. Martin.

The random selection and general irrelevance of Velenje would help forestall complaints:

* “Why does Velenje get to be on the notes, and not Acireale, Sicily?” No reason, just luck of the draw.
* “Are you saying thet Velenje is somehow more important than all the other towns in Europe?” No, of course not. It is nowhere in particular, that's the point.
* “Cornellà de Llobregat is lovely, why didn't you choose that?” Maybe next time we will!

A random town of no particular importance can be a representative of European pride in general, a sort of everytown: “Look, Europe has such a history of beauty and culture that it doesn't matter what particular place we select to represent it, this time it was Velenje but it could have been anywhere, really.”