How I imagine the meeting in some of the design companies.
Context is this survey: https://surveys.ecb.europa.eu/10b/banknotes/share/
I think the unique thing about the Euro is that it doesn't show dead people from the past on the banknotes because the banknotes are supposed to represent all of the eurozone. The backside of the coins is for national stuff (including famous people if a country wants that). I doubt that people like Leonardo da Vinci or Ludwig van Beethoven have had anything to do with present day Europe because they lived at a totally different time.
And the bird/river theme is better but kind of boring.
They should instead have further developed the current architecture theme of windows on one side and bridges on the other.
If the old design is too generic, my suggestion would be images of actual infrastructure within the EU that connects different countries like bridges, tunnels, railroads, etc. for one side of the banknote as a symbol of connecting countries, free trade and removing borders because that's what the Euro stands for. And for the other side different plants and animals that live in Europe including but not only limited to birds.
Maybe one could add technology like planes, satellites and an Ariane rocket (the I Series, which somehow is vertical, has some of that but very small and no rocket).
Or we put the Phoenician princess Europa on there with boobs to confuse the Americans.
