The European Union has been actively preparing for what it envisions as the future of money. Over the last year, it finalized its landmark comprehensive crypto legislation, the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation (MiCA), which is due to take effect in 2024, after closing its second consultation in October.
It has also made progress in its plan to introduce a central bank digital currency (CBDC), which is coming to fruition as the “digital euro.” The Bank of the Netherlands has described it simply as an “electronic form of public money – the coins and notes in our wallets.”
Many local regulators are embracing the digital euro and touting its potential benefits, though not everyone is on board. A recent survey out of Spain revealed that as much as 65% of Spaniards are not interested in using the digital euro.
Slovakia’s parliament even passed a measure in June that amended its constitution to codify a citizen’s right to pay for goods and services with cash in the face of the impending digital currency.
In Germany, one local politician is not only against the digital euro but is instead offering up another digital solution for a financial revolution – Bitcoin.
Cointelegraph spoke with Joana Cotar, a member of the German parliament and a Bitcoin activist, about her take on the digital euro situation and why she believes in the benefits of Bitcoin.
Cotar has been outspoken on her stance on the EU’s digital monetary solution, which she told Cointelegraph is that of “a staunch opponent of the digital Euro.”
“Nobody needs the digital euro,” says Member of Germany’s Parliament while wearing a #Bitcoin T-shirt. pic.twitter.com/Rw4qdeKE0h
— Bitcoin Archive (@BTC_Archive) November 11, 2023
She said a digital euro could allow central banks to set an “upper limit” for payments and ownership, making citizens “helplessly at [their] mercy.”
The digital Euro would also mean that each and every one of us could be totally monitored. As a convinced libertarian, I emphatically reject this. Anyone who is against surveillance and for freedom does not need a digital Euro!
According to Cotar, the Chinese social credit system should serve as a warning of the possibilities of the absence of cash and state-controlled payment systems. “I don’t want the authorities to be able to spy on our private life and misuse this data,” she said.
However, in April the program director for the digital euro at the European Central Bank, Evelien Witlox, said…
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