In a working document published on Thursday 4 December , the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament proposes setting an initial holding cap of around €1,000 on the portfolio of a future digital euro, in order to prevent deposits from leaving banks and preserve the stability of the euro area economy. According to the centre-right politician, this threshold could be raised at a later date, in a second phase of deployment of the digital central bank currency.
The Group also supports the integration of an offline transaction mode, which it believes is essential to guarantee financial inclusion and confirm that the digital euro will complement - not replace - cash.
Furthermore, Renew Europe rejects any form of ‘programmable money’ that would allow the authorities to restrict the use of digital euros. But it accepts the possibility of user-defined conditional payments. The Group also stresses the need to guarantee a high level of confidentiality, close to the anonymity afforded by cash, for small offline payments.
Finally, Renew Europe is calling for greater involvement of EU co-legislators in the decision to issue the digital euro by the European Central Bank.
See the working document : https://aeur.eu/f/jwa (Original version in French by Bernard Denuit)