Euro banknotes euro banknotes are supposedly more durable than the first series banknotes. Reinhold Gerstetter, an independent banknote designer, was chosen by the European Central Bank to redesign the euro notes. Due to the great number of historic bridges, arches, and gateways throughout the European continent, all the structures represented on the notes are entirely stylised illustrations of the relevant architectural styles, designed to evoke the landmarks within the European Union, representing various European ages and styles. For example, the 5 euro note has a generic rendition of Classical architecture, the 10 euro note of Romanesque architecture, the 20 euro note of
Euro banknotes and in 2002 notes and coins began to circulate. It rapidly took over from the former national currencies and slowly expanded around the rest of the EU. In 2009, the Lisbon Treaty formalised the Euro's political authority, the Euro Group, alongside the European Central Bank. Slovenia joined the Eurozone in 2007, Cyprus and Malta in 2008, Slovakia in 2009, Estonia in 2011, Latvia in 2014 and Lithuania in 2015. There are seven different denominations of the euro banknotes: €5, €10, €20, €50, €100, €200 and €500. Each has a distinctive colour and size. The designs for each of them have