The euro sign, in Unicode U+20AC € euro sign (HTML: € €), is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the Eurozone in the European Union (EU). The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. The international three-letter code (according to ISO standard ISO 4217) for the euro is EUR.
The euro currency sign was designed to be similar in structure to the old sign for the European currency unit, ₠. After a public survey had narrowed the original ten proposals down to two, it was up to the European Commission to choose the final design. The eventual winner was a design created by a team of four experts whose identities have not been revealed. It is assumed that the Belgian graphic designer Alain Billiet was the winner and thus the designer of the euro sign.
The official story of the design history of the euro sign is disputed by Arthur Eisenmenger, a former chief graphic designer for the European Economic Community, who claims he had the idea prior to the European Commission.
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