European Journal of International Relations 10(1) This critique has some bite,but it is not entirely satisfying.For one thing, it underestimates the extent to which national banknotes can also be products of such 'lowest common denominator'-type bargaining.For instance,in the mid-1990s even the Bangue de France pulled a planned 100-franc banknote featuring the Lumiere brothers,after it was objected that they had supported Vichy.The note ended up featuring Paul Cezanne -but not before the bank had to discard Henri Matisse as well,after it was pointed out that he had always opposed the very concept of money (BBC News,2000). Perhaps the lowest common denominator is even lower when it comes to a place as diverse as the EU;but it is relevant to recall here the finding that the currency iconographies of divided European societies have generally kept pace with broader cultural shifts.Moreover,even if one were to admit that the euro's iconography reflects the lowest common denominator the question still remains,why this denominator?We can ask this question in a different way-would the euro have looked the same if it had been created in earlier decades?The answer is clearly no.If the cultural norms of 1901 had remained dominant,the euro notes would probably have featured women lolling about in flowing robes,Athena,Hermes,Apollo and of course Europa'.If the norms of 1931 had stuck,the euro notes would probably have featured pictures of happy peasants,honest dockworkers and perhaps starry-eyed dot-com wizards.The norms of 1971 are to some extent still with us,so it might not have been unreasonable to expect that the euro would have featured European contributors to the sciences and arts-and indeed,this was the theme initially embraced by the EMI's Banknote Working Group until the fear of offending various national,regional, religious and gender sensibilities made this impossible (Mori,2000).This brief thought experiment demonstrates the limits of the 'lowest common denominator'explanation for the look'of the euro. But there is in fact room for a much less dismissive interpretation of the euro design.Elsewhere I have used a detailed process-tracing analysis to show that the euro banknote design selection process was carefully structured both to avoid offending various identity groupings and to try to evoke a sense of common Europeanness(Hymans,2003).Even without this process-tracing,however,enough proof of this double objective is available on the euro notes themselves.Clearly the values of openness,cooperation and communication-as noted earlier,the officially sanctioned message of the notes-are well suited to the current values climate.But beyond that first level of meaning,there are other,more subtle ways in which the euro's design choices reflect trends in contemporary values.To better understand these more subtle aspects,it may be advisable first to consider in the abstract what an ideal-typical 'postmodern'currency might look like. 20 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.Further reproduction prohibited without permission.Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission