This is the biggest threat to liberty among the many our rulers are cooking up. From Daniel Lacalle at dlacalle.com:
Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, has announced that the digital euro will be ready for October 2025. However, she stressed the importance of moving forward with the legislative process that would impose the digital euro, urging the European Commission, the European Council, and member states parliaments to accelerate the laws and directives that are required to make the digital euro viable.
Why the rush? The European Central Bank’s losses have risen to 7.8 billion euros, and the European monetary authority has posted the second consecutive loss, while sovereign bonds in Europe have slumped again in the first two months of 2025. The ECB needs a digital euro to wash away its disastrous policy of the past decade. The second reason is because confidence in the ECB’s policy is declining, sovereign bonds are not a reserve asset anymore, and inflation expectations rise. The hurry to impose the digital euro also comes at a time when European member states have announced large plans to spend, borrow, and invest in defence. Thus, the digital euro is critical to imposing the use of the euro as a currency, expanding the control of citizens, and disguising fiscal imbalances with a dangerous tool issued by a monetary institution that has lost most of its credibility in the past five years.
Remember that the ECB’s mandate is price stability, but inflation in the euro area has exceeded 22% in the past four years. At the same time, the European sovereign bond index has fallen by 14% since 2022.
There is another important reason to rush the digital euro. Global central banks and investment firms are concerned that European states will confiscate the assets of the Russian central bank, setting a dangerous precedent that could affect the assets of other non-European nations. As foreign funds fearing confiscation may leave the European financial system, the digital euro may be a useful tool to impose the use of the currency even if demand declines.
“The ECB needs a digital euro to wash away its disastrous policy of the past decade.”
Will someone please explain how digitizing money washes away debt?
It doesn’t; it just makes it easier to inflate it away. Presumably, the only medium of exchange will be digital, and we’ll have no choice but to accept the rapidly depreciating digital units. They will also make bank runs impossible. And of course, the government will know everything we buy and sell.