L’Europa otterrà l’euro digitale nel 2029 – indipendentemente da Visa e Mastercard

The European Central Bank (ECB) wants to start a trial with the digital euro in 2027. If the trial is successful, the digital currency could be officially introduced in 2029. The schedule depends on a legislative framework that European governments and the European Parliament must agree on next year.

ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone presented the project on Thursday as a broader goal than just technical innovation. ‘This is not just a technical project, but a joint effort to make the European monetary system future-proof,’ Cipollone said. The digital euro should make Europe less dependent on American payment companies such as Visa and Mastercard.

The Dutch Central Bank (DNB) emphasises the urgency of a public digital payment method. ‘As payment habits evolve and cash payments decline in favour of digital transactions, the need for a public digital means of payment alongside cash has become increasingly urgent,’ the central bank explains.

The plans have been met with objections from privacy advocates, who fear that governments will gain too much insight into citizens’ spending habits. Outgoing Finance Minister Eelco Heinen (VVD) emphasised last month that the digital euro must offer guaranteed privacy and ‘never be programmable’.

The ECB has been working on a digital counterpart to cash for years. The digital euro is intended to complement physical money, not replace it.

Although the Euro is very convenient, I’m not convinced a centralising money is such a wise endeavour.

So what I understand is (and please correct me if I am wrong):

That it is going to be a third money system, separate from the other two, cash and commercial bank money, and will be interchangable with the two. But the long term plan is that the other two will gradually disappear only leaving the CBDC.

It is like a bank acccount issued by the central bank, meaning it is alway guaranteed and you cannot lose your money like with the icesave bankrupcy.

Sounds great right? Well no, this digital euro gives them FULL control. They can decide to issue negative interest if they think the economy needs a boost, and they intend to do so. They could even decide who can spend his money on what. Of course ‘they have no intention’ of doing that, but the framework for them to do it is being put in place with this.

yes only like 40 years late

these claims of censorship, monitoring are nonsensical. We already live in a world in which all our communications, payments, can be traced, and leveraged against us. The matter is:

do we want to entrust this enormous power to institutions that are borne out of our democratic processes, and that are subjected to powerful conventions and bodies safeguarding our fundamental rights (namely the European Convention on Human Rights).

or, do we deem preferable to send these data to opaque and private companies whose compliance to said frameworks will always be subjugated to the desire of the US government for extraterritorial shenanigans? Is it acceptable that, tomorrow, should sanctions be pronounced by the executive branch of the US, for things as subversive as prosectuing crimes against humanity or advocating for freedom of conscience, those people could lose access to their means of payment since Visa and Mastercard would comply?

I have bigger faith in the ECB, the ECHR, european strength in numbers than I have towards Visa, Mastercard, the US government and its ability to coerce national governments into ceding their data.

The digital euro is completely necessary for European sovereignty and needs to be introduced as soon as humanly possible. Hope the trials and tests are successful.

It’s fascinating to see how Europe, after witnessing the impact of sanctions on Russia, realized the same could happen to them and began developing its own sovereign payment and internet infrastructure. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out given the EU’s fragmentation.

So it begins. Digital slavery for all

Just use Bitcoin

2029 lmao. as usual way too slow and way too late