Croatia’s Plan to Put Tesla on Euro Coins Annoys Belgrade

Serbia’s central bank is accusing Croatia of appropriating the the historical and cultural heritage of Serbians if Zagreb places inventor Nikola Tesla’s visage on euro coins, when the latter country hopes to adopt the euro common currency in 2023.

Tesla, the inventor of alternating current (AC) among his other inventions, was an ethnic Serb born in the part of the Austro-Hungarian empire that is today’s Croatia. While the inventor emigrated to the US when he was 35 years old and died there, his ashes were later transferred to Belgrade in the 1950s.

While over the years the question of whom Tesla “belongs to” occasionally crops up between the two Balkan states, Croatia’s prime minister, Andrej Plenkovic, has in recent days said Croatia will pursue its plans regarding the euro coins and that he doesn’t believe it should be a problem. Serbia’s central bank, meanwhile, has declared that it will fight against Zagreb’s initiative at the European level.

Source: RFE/RL