About 50,000 citizens responded to the call of the Croatian central bank (HNB) to take part in the selection of the future Croatian euro coin, Vecernji List daily reported on Tuesday.

Croatians were offered five motifs to rate – the Croatian coat-of-arms, a geographical map of Croatia, the marten (Croatian: kuna) as depicted on the kuna coin, the Glagolitic script and an image of the southern Adriatic city of Dubrovnik – but they could also put in their own suggestions.

The public mostly talked about a sixth motif, that of the Croatian-born physicist and inventor Nikola Tesla.

The final decision will be made by the central bank’s Currency Committee, taking into account the opinion of citizens. It is expected the committee will select “at least three motifs”, which the HNB will inform the public about midweek.

The number of motifs on euro coins varies among countries in the euro area, and the largest number of countries, ten, has three motifs on their coins. The countries with three motifs on their coins, which are Germany, France, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, Malta, Finland, Slovakia, Latvia, and Monaco, usually have one motif on the 1 and 2 euro coins, another one on the 50, 20 and 10 cent coins and the third on the 5, 2 and 1 cent coins.

While voting in Croatia was underway, the European Commission reported support for the introduction of the euro in Croatia was growing, reaching 61 percent according to a public opinion poll conducted in May. This is six percentage points more compared to a previous poll conducted in 2020.

The results have shown that 13 percent of Croatian citizens strongly support the introduction of the euro, and another 48 percent generally support it. Most citizens (56 percent) believe the introduction of the euro will be good for the state, but 40 percent of respondents think the euro will have a negative effect. In that group, political opponents of the euro are likely to seek support for a possible referendum recently announced by the right-wing Croatian Sovereignists coalition, Vecernji List reported.