5 Euros 70 years of EOKA

EOKA — the National Organisation of Cypriot Struggle — launched its armed campaign against British colonial rule on April 1, 1955, under the military direction of George Grivas. The organisation sought enosis, union with Greece, a goal that was never achieved; Cyprus gained independence in 1960 as a republic rather than as part of Greece, an outcome few within EOKA's leadership had anticipated or wanted.

The commemorative falls in a year when the politics of the 1955–59 struggle remain genuinely contested, particularly regarding EOKA's attacks on left-wing Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots alongside British forces.