Croatian National Bank (HNB) Vice Governor Ivana Jakir-Bajo said on Tuesday that the HNB Currency Committee had decided to invite new proposals for the design of the national side of the €1 coin with the marten as the motif and a 3D model of the design.

The Currency Committee held a session earlier in the day and accepted the decision by Stjepan Pranjkovic to withdraw his proposal for the design of the €1 coin, which was recently selected as the best design for that euro coin.

The Currency Committee today also decided to invite new proposals for the design of the national side of the €1 coin with the marten as the motif with the Croatian coat-of-arms in the background as well as a 3D model of the design, Jakir-Bajo, who chairs the Currency Committee and the board in charge of selecting designs for the national sides of euro coins, said.

She added that during the original competition all authors were required to sign statements whereby they confirmed that their designs were original intellectual creations made solely for the needs of the competition.

Jakir-Bajo expressed regret that the latest developments had cast a shadow on the entire selection process as well as on the designs of other authors of the national sides of euro and cent coins, featuring a geographic map of Croatia, Nikola Tesla and the Glagolitic script.

She thanked the Croatian public for a timely reaction, noting that making a correction at the current stage of the process was much easier.

The new competition will not affect the planned dynamic of making euro coins and coins with the national side will be in circulation on time, she said.

The new competition, too, will be open to all physical persons of age with Croatian citizenship.

The selected designs for the national side of euro and cent coins were presented last Friday, including the marten motif for the €1 coin by Stjepan Pranjkovic, who has a master’s degree in applied arts.

Shortly thereafter, however, media reported that his design was almost identical to a marten photo by Scottish photographer Iain H. Leach, which raised the question of intellectual property infringement.

In a letter to the HNB Currency Committee on 6 February, Pranjkovic said that, “spurred by the unpleasant atmosphere in the media and on social networks as well as the pressures” he was exposed to, he had decided to withdraw his design for the €1 coin with the marten motif as well as waive all rights.

The authors of the most successful designs were given awards of HRK 70,000 each.

Pranjkovic applied also to design other motifs, and two of his other proposals were selected as the second best motifs for the coins featuring the map of Croatia and the Glagolitic script. He won a reward of HRK 35,000 for each.

Asked by reporters if Pranjkovic had withdrawn his other selected designs for euro coins, Jakir-Bajo said that he had withdrawn only the design for the coin featuring the marten as the motif.

“As regards the rewards for the two second best places, without taking into consideration moral and ethical aspects, and taking into account what the Committee has to do, which is to follow the terms of the competition, we have not identified any departures in that regard,” she said.