Germany’s finance minister Olaf Scholz, a noted crypto critic, has said that he wants the European Central Bank to accelerate the research on the potential digital Euro. The finance minister is known for advocating anti-cryptocurrency sentiments while encouraging the EU to develop digital currencies to prevent private virtual currencies’ proliferation.
According to the Reuters report, Olaf Scholz has urged the European Union (EU) to speed up plans on a proposed digital Euro. In the last few years, crypto startups have emerged worldwide at an impressive speed and, with that, the need for office space.
“Consumers and businesses are starting to demand digital money.”
While speaking during an online conference on the future of payments, Germany’s finance minister remarked that most businesses and consumers were beginning to demand digital money. He stated, “on the digital Euro, I think we should work very hard. It is nothing where we should wait and see. [We] should be able to decide at any time that now we should do something with a digital euro.” Earlier, the governor of France’s central bank, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, said that the digital Euro is important as the EU can not trail behind in the CDBC race.
EU is still in the research stage of the digital Euro.
Germany’s finance minister is arguably one of the noted vocal anti-crypto finance chiefs in Europe. On several occasions, Scholz has issued warnings on the dangers of private digital currencies like Facebook’s Libra. Earlier this year, Deutsche Bundesbank’s head Jens Weidman called on European regulators to prevent Libra from gaining a foothold in the region.
Scholz has offered the digital Euro as a viable countermeasure against projects like Libra. As reported earlier, the Libra Association is planning to launch a trimmed-down version of the stablecoin in January next year. However, the organization is yet to receive final regulatory clearance from Finma.
