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 the expansion of the European Union: every member of the EU is depicted on it. The initial series did not include the recent members Cyprus and Malta (Cyprus was off the map to the east and Malta was too small to be depicted.) The Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet features on the Europa series banknotes, as a result of Bulgaria joining the European Union in 2007. Thus this series includes "", which is the Bulgarian spelling for EURO, as well as the abbreviation "" (short for ' in Bulgarian). The new banknotes also feature the Maltese abbreviation BĊE ('), the Hungarian abbreviation