5 ECU Lluís Companys i Jover

Lluís Companys was President of the Generalitat de Catalunya when Franco's forces consolidated control in 1939. He fled to France, was captured by the Gestapo in 1940, handed over to Spanish authorities, tried by court-martial, and shot at Montjuïc Castle on October 15 of that year — the only elected European head of government executed by the Nazi regime's collaboration with a foreign state. This ECU issue, struck over fifty years later under a restored Generalitat, carries the particular weight of that history without needing to explain it.