That could have been a mistake. Some coins from New Zealand, for example, look a lot like British currency.
Each euro country mints their own coins with different insignia, so people are used to 2 euro coins that what whatever figurehead.
The 1 and 2 euro coins are dual metal though, making the counterfeiting much less lucrative. The Finnish 10 mark coins also used to be dual metal; so I think was the French 10 franc coin; I don't recall if others had much security against counterfeiting.