Mario Draghi, third President of the ECB Mario Draghi

Mario Draghi is the only ECB President whose signature appears on both generations of euro banknotes. He took office while the first series was still being printed and left after the Europa series had been completed.

From Rome to Frankfurt

Draghi studied economics in Rome and took a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was director general of the Italian Treasury through the 1990s, spent several years in investment banking, and became Governor of Banca d’Italia in 2006. He moved to the ECB presidency on 1 November 2011.

After leaving Frankfurt he served as Prime Minister of Italy from 2021 to 2022.

A presidency that spans two series

His eight years at the ECB covered the sovereign debt crisis and the introduction of the Europa series. First-series printing continued into the early part of his term, so a number of Draghi first-series combinations exist; from 2013 onwards the new €5 and then the other denominations were issued with the same signature.

That overlap is what makes his signature useful for dating a note. A Draghi signature on a first-series banknote points to a late print run; on a Europa-series note it points to the first six years of that series, before Christine Lagarde took over.

What the signature does and does not prove

A signature narrows the period in which a note was signed off, not the date it was printed or issued. Stocks are held and released over time, and a printing works may produce for a given signature over several years.

The catalogues therefore record the signature alongside the print year, the printing works and the run, rather than treating it as a date on its own: see the first-series catalogue and the Europa-series catalogue.

Where to look on the note

The signature is on the front, beside the ECB initials. The four presidential signatures are compared side by side in signatures on euro banknotes.