20 ECU Rovaniemi

The ECU — European Currency Unit — was a basket currency used as an accounting unit within the European Monetary System from 1979 until it was superseded by the euro in 1999. Finland joined the EMS only in 1996, making this 1994 issue a somewhat premature gesture toward European integration, struck two years before formal membership. Several European nations issued ECU-denominated collector pieces during the early 1990s as soft diplomatic signaling.

Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland, sits almost exactly on the Arctic Circle — a geographical fact that drove its selection as subject matter for Finnish commemorative issues targeting the international collector market of that decade.