70 European economists, including the Frenchman Thomas Piketty and two former central bankers - the Spaniard Miguel Fernandez Ordoñez and the Cypriot Panicos Demetriades - warn against the financial lobby, which is trying to “hollow out the digital euro project”, in an open letter sent to MEPs on Sunday 11 January (see EUROPE 13777/12).
Economists are asking: will Europeans assert control over their money in the digital age, or do we allow others to control it for us?
At a time when the Member States have decided on their negotiating positions and the European Parliament is making slow progress on this issue (see EUROPE 13744/15), the signatories call on the EU legislator to create a “robust” digital euro: - which constitutes the “backbone” of a sovereign European payment infrastructure, independent of private American service providers and based on national service providers adopting the highest privacy standards; - that is accessible to all Europeans, including those without a bank account; - which represents “a credible store of value through a generous and gradually rising holding limit”.
See the letter from the economists: https://aeur.eu/f/k7z (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)