200 Euro

The 200 euro note was the denomination most critics predicted would fail in daily use — too high for routine retail transactions in most member states, too low to compete with the 500 for large-value storage. That assessment proved broadly correct. Circulation figures for the 200 have consistently lagged behind every other denomination, and in many countries it was treated more as a reserve note than a spending instrument from the outset.

Robert Kalina's original design won an internal ECB competition in 1996. The architectural motifs were deliberately fictional — no real buildings, to avoid privileging any member nation's heritage over another's.