To celebrate 35 years of the Eramus programme, euro-area Finance Ministers decided that euro-area Member States would strike a 2-euro commemorative coin using a common design on the national side. The public selected the winning design by web-voting. Voters had a choice of six designs, which had been pre-selected by a professional jury following a design competition among euro area Member States, and they chose the design created by Mr Joaquin Jimenez, professional designer at the Monnaie de Paris.
Issuing countries: Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland
The design is a mix of two major elements of the Erasmus programme: the original intellectual inspiration, Erasmus himself, and the allegory of its influence over Europe.
The first one is symbolised by one of the most known depiction of Erasmus.
The second one is symbolised by a beam of links going across the coin from a beacon to another, representing the numerous intellectual and human exchanges between the European students.
As a reference to Europe, some of these links form other stars, born from the synergy between the countries.
The figure 35, for 35th anniversary comes out from the stars in a contemporary graphical style.
The outer ring depicts the twelve stars of the European flag.
Legends: LIETUVA / 1987-2022 / ERASMUS PROGRAMMA / J.J. (initials of the author Joaquin Jimenez) |
