2 Euros Ionian Islands

Issued to mark the 150th anniversary of the unification of the Ionian Islands with Greece in 1864, a transfer negotiated not through conflict but through British diplomatic withdrawal — London had held the islands as a protectorate since 1815 under the Treaty of Paris. The handover was partly engineered to strengthen the pro-British King George I's claim to the Greek throne, making the cession as much a geopolitical calculation as an act of goodwill.