Hopefully, this will become a role model for other countries as well, extracting complete financially power back out of the hands of surveillance capitalism - as privacy is also a big aspect of this (nothing tracks you as confident as your transactions) !
PS: those arguing that then the "state" will be able to see your transactions: a. this wholly depends on the implemented system. I trust democratic and ruled-by-law institutions way more than financial players always operating at the most legal gray to extract most profits. b. I rather want one highly secured state financial database, than 100s of smaller ones that sell (or leak) your data (as it is right now).
PPS: Also a "Apple/Google Wallet" equivalent app mandatory on phone's should be the next logical step to cut those data-harvesters completely out of your private life.
As for privacy - at least in Benelux, there are robust laws in place that make it very difficult to even request payment history from personal accounts.
And generally for the EU, all that regulation around GDPR and other data related directives is at play here by default, so there are multiple layers of protections and guardrails to prevent snoopy corporations or other entities from getting such financial info.
Or new compliance obligations, such as recently the new need to provide a source of fund if you buy a watch worth more than 10k€. The watch seller has to then pay a specialized company to analyze it, the customer loses time on trying to get the documents, you leak private data to unknown parties and compliance agents will know everything about you. So much for the "privacy".
... but you need your Apple or Android phone to use it at all?
Android is open source, except for specifically the bits that anyone who cares about being sovereign in the face of US interests would want to replace anyway.
Also, last I checked the phones themselves are either made by Foxconn, BYD, or a few Taiwanese-owned factories, so while yes Europe has a problem with the physical devices, it's the same problem the US already has.
That's what the bank cards are for, of course; they don't need a phone.
I think the EU (both as a union and as member states) are at risk of the USA doing shenanigans here, particularly due to Project 2025 cutting out the checks and balances that ought to slow down the Executive branch, where the USA moving as slowly as it normally would, would give the EU time to move.
But also, I do also think the various European governments are taking the threat of the US doing nonsense things seriously, and are doing the things to mitigate those risks as best as possible.
You mean VISA cards, with a few extra apps (that's what, say, Worldcom is, an app on a VISA card) the data sent over Cisco equipment to IBM compatible servers with encryption via chips developed through VISA by American manufacturers?
I still see some issues there.
Oh, and VISA had to demand Worldcom be moved to Switzerland, to prevent EU countries from let's call it "using it in negotiation" against each other.
And I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that in a few years, or as soon as the Ukraine war ends one way or another, central banks are going to demand SWIFT moves out of Brussels as well. Call it a shot in the dark.
I get that it's become difficult to trust the US recently for the reason we all know. But you shouldn't forget: these institutions need to be trusted by every central bank ... and "trusted by every central bank" is not the EU either (well it especially isn't France or Germany, who effectively control the EU)
What was the sole purpose of introducing this again? Preventing that. This doesn't help.
And EU countries have already demonstrated ... they had a near-monopoly on everything really. On chips, interconnects, cell phones, cars, optics, planes, satellite internet, ... but they traded it for a bit of money. If they want it back, it's of course going to cost EU states a lot of money, which they're not willing to do.
So why do they say they're going to do this? They, as in the rest of the EU organization, is not willing to put in the effort. In the short term it's slightly cheaper to have Google and Apple do this, and the ECB will have to live with the fact that if Trump decides all EU payments stop ... they stop. Funny how the US has never done that unilaterally, always through the UN, and the ECB has done that, without asking anyone (to Greece, and to Italy, and if we're brutally honest, to a bunch of African states too).
So I don't feel particularly sorry for the ECB here.
But I must ask: given that this doesn't make 1 mm progress towards their stated goal ... qui bono?
False.
Aside from the way the announced new payment system works with cards and doesn't actually need, merely also supports, apps…
Consider the MVP of a house: walls, door, roof.
Walls without a roof, without a door but simply a hole where a door might go, will let animals (or thieves) wander in, and be cold at night and not keep the sun off you in the day.
A door without walls or a roof is, what, an art installation?
A roof, supported by pillars without any walls or door, will keep you dry and will keep the sun off, but not keep the wind out, nor animals, nor thieves.
What the EU has done here is like any one of those three: necessary, not sufficient.
(Probably most like the roof given cards work without apps, but this was just the first analogy that came to mind, roll with it).
If the institutions of the EU ordered the creation of handsets (it doesn't have the power to do so, it's much closer to being a glorified free trade agreement with a light sprinkle of democratic self-updating to the rules of that FTA, than to being a federal government), but forgot to make a payment system, this would also still fail.
Collectively we also have to make office software and email systems, as demonstrated by the result of USA sanctions against ICC judges.
> And EU countries have already demonstrated ... they had a near-monopoly on everything really. On chips, interconnects, cell phones, cars, optics, planes, satellite internet, ... but they traded it for a bit of money.
Oh god no. We never had anything like a monopoly on most of those things, and still have one on some others.
We had — still have — decent players in aerospace; for space specifically it's more that SpaceX has outcompeted everyone worldwide including other USA companies than like the EU being behind. The EU's planes are still going fine, but Europe was never a monopoly there in the first place. Pre-Starlink satellite internet was always a joke (or emergency fallback), but the players were never monopolists. ASML and Zeiss are still even now major supply-chain players, but that's the closest the EU has ever been to a monopoly on this stuff (Zeiss more than ASML).
You could say we had and lost leads in interconnects though. Perhaps, though it's borderline, early mobile phones.
> In the short term it's slightly cheaper to have Google and Apple do this, and the ECB will have to live with the fact that if Trump decides all EU payments stop ... they stop.
Or this is one of several independent steps, it only works when all are ready, and they are willing to spend the money.
> Funny how the US has never done that unilaterally, always through the UN,
https://apnews.com/article/international-court-sanctions-tru...
> But I must ask: given that this doesn't make 1 mm progress towards their stated goal ... qui bono?
Consider that you may be wrong.
This is the step they can do for free (without eating any government budgets). The other steps are really expensive. One does not lead to the other.
This is like let's make a new Google and "already implementing the sorting algorithm". While undoubtedly important, it does not actually advance you towards your goal.
Which is exactly what the EU did a few years back of course. Try to force the creation of a new Google. What did they come up with?
Trovaprezzi.it
Kelkoo.co.uk
Yes, really. Visit those sites and decide for yourself how close they are to replacing Google. There were 10 or so others, even worse (by which I mean much worse scam sites). Don't worry, the EU kept the damages for their own budget and did not give them to those companies to actually try to build a new Google.
Google, the search engine?
A search engine is just a sorting algorithm for the query over the data. This is what Page Rank is. Also, the Page Rank patent has expired.
What made Google Inc. (and later Alphabet) a big player in the world was the money from the adverts. Their excuse for the prices they charge for those adverts comes from their analytics. The analytics are worryingly invasive, hence GDPR and the consent popups.
> Kelkoo.co.uk
Kelkoo is a European price comparison service founded in France in 1999.[1]
In 2000 Kelkoo merged with Zoomit, Dondecomprar and Shopgenie. The company was bought by Yahoo! on 26 March, 2004.[2] and was subsequently sold by Yahoo to Jamplant, a British private equity firm, in 2008.
Initial funding of $3 million was provided by Banexi Ventures and Innovacom
You might be able to put it in a similar role as eBay or Amazon, but only if I could also categorise Kaufland's website that way. But not Google.
That's my point. Not even remotely close, and 100x as scammy as Google. The EU commission claimed these companies were the European competition for Google (and then kept the money they got from Google that was supposed to let them build their companies)
You said:
Which is exactly what the EU did a few years back of course. Try to force the creation of a new Google. What did they come up with?
Kelkoo did its thing before Google did shopping. Google is the mimic here.
Kelkoo *pre-dates* Google's shopping search system, by a few years (Google's one first launched as Froogle in Dec 2002).
> The EU commission claimed these companies were the European competition for Google (and then kept the money they got from Google that was supposed to let them build their companies)
1. When did the EU commission get money from Google, for any purpose or reason, including fines? Was it around fifteen years after Kelkoo was bought and sold by Yahoo!?
And therefore would have needed a time machine to be involved in the creation of Kelkoo?
2. The actual reality is that Kelkoo joined in a lawsuit against Google for monopoly abuse[a], claiming to have been damaged by Google manipulating search results to favour its own products.
Important: The US courts have also found Google guilty of antitrust violations[b].
If you try to insist that this case — which is the closest I can even find to your phrasing, you've not cited anything — can use any of the words "forcing", "creating", or the sentence "and then kept the money they got from Google that was supposed to let them build their companies", then you have to also apply this to the US courts.
It's incorrect to use those words and phrases to describe the US case against Google, it's incorrect to use those words and phrases to describe the EU case against Google.
[a] https://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/cases/dec_docs/39...
[b] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/05/google-loses-antitrust-case-...
It was, and is, a completely absurd claim, that the goal was to have an EU search engine, that goal, of course, totally failed, and that it is very weird where the money went. You know, given the goal. Given what they supposedly wanted to achieve.
Well, perhaps I should really clarify. I'm sure that what happened to the money is totally legal, but that it is going to achieve exactly nothing for the stated goal, and just happens to go to the budget of the politicians involved. Totally unrelated, I must say, the Berlaymont building, where these people work, has a nice restaurant. Well, multiple. I especially love the foamed milk with imported praline on a stick with just a drop of ... I forgot. It's whiskey, basically, but some Belgian version. Oh and you want to recognize EU commissioners there? They're the little mean guys with 20 security guards around them, eating in a huge separate space in the back, because some of them are so popular they've been attacked by their own EU personnel. And you'd think that would be an excuse to use security guards as servants, but actually no, I was somewhat near one incident. They really were attacked by their own workers. Rumor is some security guards joined in the attack.
Better to just connect the myriad of instant bank payment systems that already exist all over europe than to invent another standard.
And also it superseeds most of those payment solutions. Wero is based on iDEAL and other european payment systems.
However, this payment system also comes with physical dedicated bank cards that can be used with the new system. There is no need to run an app.
Meanwhile, on my linux PC with full root access, because I am the admin, this somehow isn't an issue. No, attestation is not needed. It never was before, and it still isn't, especially because it is NOT required on systems that have way more chance of being set up insecurely. There's nothing stopping me from viewing the source code of the page. There is nothing stopping me from taking a screenshot. There is nothing stopping me from doing anything. I am root on my machine, and that's ok there. Why is remote attestation required? Why the hell would I even want google to "vouch for me" as a european?
Swiss-cheese security sprinkled upon grandfathering in PCs.
The former: there's no such thing as perfect security.
The latter: PC security model is awful, but we always had it and it would break stuff to get rid of it entirely.
Are you protesting against yet another Orban? How about your accounts in every country of the world are zeroed now? Automatically. Are you protesting against Danish Stazi 2.0 Chat Control? How about all your money are now frozen and you can only spend a few hundred and only for groceriess, as a punishment? Stuff like that will be possible and easy.
Without summoning the decentralized block-based "currency" crowd, I would like to point out that in the entire lifespan of such technologies they never have received widespread institutional or legislative buy-in like this EU initiative to build a digital Euro.
While USDC and BTC have been used as defacto currencies in some countries there is truly no equivalent adoption in any meaningfully mature economic zone such as EU/NA/CN.
I welcome sovereign digital payments initiatives.
Payments aren't and there is no reason for the State to monopolize it. Especially given the EU poor track record on fostering innovation. The EU bureaucrats will "regulate" it to the bone, increasing compliance costs for processors and mass surveillance. We'll be back to the start.
except relying on a foreign actor for the economy is a security risk?
Fiat currency is already a natural monopoly on payments.
Imagine if every time you wanted to pay for a train ride you had to put your money into an envelope, mail it to the United States, and wait for it to come back. That's VISA.
- The EU is not a state, it's a governance body composed of representatives from individual member states. Every state is responsible for implementing their take on the directive.
- "EU poor track record on fostering innovation" - many things you use online have been researched and conceptualised in the EU. Even if they go elsewhere for funding, don't mistake where "innovation" happens and where it gets packaged by VC money for sale and enschitification.
- compliance costs: I think that's only expensive for companies who intend to to sell or otherwise do something shady with user data. Remember, not collecting data makes you instantly compliant with zero cost.
It's a supranational institution that dictates laws to States, with a budget and coercive powers against States. It just lacks an army of its own. Whether it's a proper state or not doesn't matter.
> conceptualised in the EU
No, in Europe. No EU bureaucrat conceptualizes things. EU =\= Europe.
> I think that's only expensive for companies who intend to to sell or otherwise do something shady with user data. Remember, not collecting data makes you instantly compliant with zero cost.
A lot of businesses need consumer data to improve their offerings and be competitive against the big boys. And RGPD lawyers ain't cheap, so even if you keep the minimal amount of data, you have to fork €10k+ to review everything, etc. The requirements for AI are even worse. All of those compliance jobs are unproductive and a burden on EU companies.
Same for the tax compliance obligations, which are ever increasing and now require you to record and document everything, especially if you do cross-border operations, as you are considered guilty by default if you don't.
We could also talk about the requirements to audit your sourcing chain for "human rights abuses", which ends in compliance hell for industrial companies with 2k+ suppliers, while of course Chinese companies don't have this problem.
The EU doesn't do any cost/benefit analysis on this, and just suppose that companies will magically find ressources to deal with their new regulatory "innovations".
Regarding > Institution that dictates laws to States
again no, because the laws are created and voted by elected representatives of said states, so the EU is not some 3rd party that exists on the side, the EU is the countries within it. Member states create their own laws.
What you are saying here is false: EU regulations are directly applicable, and don't need to be transposed into local laws.
It's the case for directives, which are required to be incorporated within 2 years. If the State doesn't comply, it faces an infringement procedure (Article 258 TFEU:), sanctions and fines (Article 260 TFEU).
The EU itself is not a real democracy, given that at every step obscurity and backroom-dealing is preferred to transparency. Chat Control is an excellent example of it: it was recommended by officials whose names were redacted. Even when the European Parliament said no in the past, they try to push it again - those fools can't anyway vote a law preventing the EC to do it!
More formally, the only directly elected institution (the parliament) doesn't have initiative power, doesn't hold the pen during trilogue negociations, is highly corruptible[0] given the proportional election, and can just "accept" the head of the European Commission. The EC is the only permanent body and can arbitrage rotating presidencies, pressure parties, and do screening on MPs to get what they want.
The lack of judicial consequences regarding Van Der Leyen after the sms affair is quite appalling for a commission that yells about "compliance" every day of the year.
[0] https://www.ftm.eu/articles/european-parliamentarians-involv...
The public can hold government rules for surveillance in check, whereas they don't have that option for private payment systems.
So it only makes sense that digital currency is too.
I think you fail to understand why these are public infrastructure.
Why should water be public infra but food is not?
The main reason why infrastructure of any kind (water, sewage, etc) is a public infrastructure - even in largely privatized economies - is that infrastructure is essentially a natural monopoly. Food on the other hand isn't and it can largely be traded as a commodity (which is, at least in my opinion, a major reason why our food system is so broken).
If your only expectation is that it provides enough calories for your population, you are absolutely right. If you have a look at the bigger picture, the issues are plentiful. On the producer side, farmers are operating at relatively thin margins which encourages consolidation and unsustainable farming practices. This in turn leads to extensive soil degradation and fertilizer use, which is unsustainable - both financially and ecologically.
On the consumer side, people are becoming more overweight (which cannot be exclusively be attributed to the food system, but diet of course plays a significant role). Food is becoming more expensive and lower quality. Food waste also still is a major problem.
Many issues are shared between the US and the European food system, although they may not be as extreme as in the US. However, it does not feel like there is actual political will to steer the ship in a different direction.
"Suicide Among Farmers in France: Occupational Factors and Recent Trends":
* https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27409004/
"Under Pressure: Suicides Among Farmers in Austria and Germany":
* https://www.journalismfund.eu/suicides-farmers-austria-and-g...
"Mental Health Risks to Farmers in the UK":
* https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/43055/pdf/
And Europe's policies affecting other places, "Stop the Dumping! How EU agricultural subsidies are damaging livelihoods in the developing world":
* https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/stop-the-dumping...
Just to add to the conversation, personally I back and forth a bit on which things should be public or private owned, farms especially.
My general reasoning is that when a "best" solution is known, monopolies tend to form; monopolies tend to extract as much economic rent as possible; I'd rather economic rents be extracted by a government for the purpose of national benefit rather than personal enrichment.
Conversely, when there is no known "best" solution, a free market allows a range of entrepreneurs the opportunity to try their ideas in the hope of cornering the market.
I think water is probably in the first, but with a caveat that this is a high-level thing and it's fine to have hundreds of different companies trying to figure out the best ways to make and install municipal pipes, that work is contracted to by local governments.
Food? I dunno, weather is still a massive dice roll for farming output. Perhaps nationalisation would work, perhaps subsidies, price regulations for inputs and floors for outputs, are the least wrong way to do this. But I'm extremely uncertain.
The water pipes are public infra. They pump it into your house.
The more people that use the same system, the cheaper it can get. Drawing competing systems of water pipes to houses to let companies compete would simply drive up the cost for everyone.
Same with electricity, gas lines, sewage...
Water itself is not publicly owned. You can buy water in the store like food.
When fiber arrives, there is a 3 months waiting period before any company can provide the service. This is intended to give enough time for everyone to prepare an offer.
When I got mine, I called the regulation authority (Arcep) who gave me the date and hour my line opens. On that day I called my preferred provider who told me "it is coming! we will call you!" and then the one who laid the cable who told me "we can come in 2 days". I chose the latter.
A few years later the preferred one finally made its way to my area...
Electricity itself is fungible in moment, so electricity can used shared access medium of grid. But similarly it makes little sense to have multiple roads in densely build areas. So both roads and water pipes end up as natural monopolies in build up areas.
European governments govern food supply with cash subsidies to farmers, land use rules helping farmers, special immigration rules for agricultural labourers, special extra-low inheritance taxes for farmers, special subsidies for things like having hedges between fields, special low-tax fuel for farm equipment, different tax rates for different foodstuffs (bread vs cake vs wine vs beer), provision of super cheap water for irrigation, minimum price guarantees with governments buying up over-produced products, special border controls for fresh goods that can't be held up, special border controls for live animals, entire government departments for things like monitoring and controlling the spread of animal disease, rules on precisely what chemicals can be used, rules about things like chemical run-off into waterways, rules about animal welfare, rules about slaughterhouse conditions, rules about package materials, package sizes, package labels, rules about how much pork must be in a sausage for it to be called a pork sausage, rules about who can call their product 'champagne' or 'parmesan'.
If the payments industry was regulated like the food industry, it would be more regulated, not less.
Not all food but produce, bread, milk, infant foods, flour, rice and other cereals being sorta price controlled the way water/electricity is on most places would benefit mostly everyone
Edit: the EU becoming like 1984 is not what we should be wary of. Our societies becoming like "Brave New World" (control through hedonism instead of straightforward repression) is a much more realistic scenario.
No. That's false. The EU was supposed to bring peace. The EU "single market" is a mean to achieve peace, not a goal in itself.
And the goalpost has since moved very far, I don't see really how preventing countries from sending back illegal immigrants or making same-sex marriage has anything to do with European peace.
Actually, the "goalposts" in 1983 already were "an ever closer union"
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solemn_Declaration_on_European...
So yeah, depending on what market your institution is from, you might see an increase in regulation. But changes are, once you expand beyond national borders, you have less regulation to deal with as compared to before the EU.
It may seems that things are not going in the right direction and I'd agree but we are pretty rich compared to the rest of the world, we are in good health, and we are still not at war against each other like we were in the last thousands years so I'll take that.
We had prosperity befote the EC and we can, and did, achieve peace by a mindset shift after two world wars and free trade. There is a big difference between the original EEC and the EU, too.
Again these are all a posteriori arguments that are repeated ad nauseam to justify a federal Europe and to manufacture consent.
But the results are here : we are at peace, and compared to the rest of the world, we are in good health, we live in overall great conditions and we are pretty much free. I'm not saying we don't have to fight to enhance things or to at least keep them like they are. I'm french so I know what it means to protest against basically everything ;)
I'm not saying we couldn't have done it better. But it's important to acknowledge what we really have before trying to get better things.
> I'm french
Me too, so I know that the country entered the EEC without any desire to disappear into a superstate but that's what's happening very insidiously, including because the country has had very weak leadership for decades.
India, with a population 3 times the size of the EU already did this more than half a decade ago.
And it works brilliantly.
The concept is hardly revolutionary within Europe, though. Back in 1996, the Dutch "ChipKnip" was introduced, where you could store a small amount of money directly on a bank card so payment terminals wouldn't need permanent internet access to process payments. This was abandoned when wireless payment technologies were introduced, but the concept has been around for decades.
Like so many fine-working systems, this system only worked within one country. The EU is now trying to solve this problem for every member country, which means convincing banks and financial institutions that whatever reasoning blocked their participation in earlier non-American systems are now no longer a problem.
They explicitly differentiate themselves from crypto assets, and the only party issuing them seems to be European Central Bank.
Doesn't sound like crypto to me either
Then they introduced a (small) fee.
Apparently Norway's Vipps is free for small amounts, but charges 1% for large.
Too tempting for the EU not to play, but that will replace a duopoly with a monopoly, which will end up doing what monopolies have always done. "For the greater good" here is to incentivize competition.
Why the heck did Thailand manage to create instant payment system that works across Asian countries and European Union did not even finish similar system inside the EU?
Yes we have SEPA payments but these are useless in most payment-to-merchant type of payments across the EU.
We already should have had such system widely used and accepted across the WHOLE UNION.
I am glad we will have something but if I still need a VISA/MC card when I travel abroad ill just be constantly reminded of stupidity and inefficiency of the EU.
Does the Thai payment system work in a German restaurant? Then why should the EU one work in Malaysia?
Can you pay with WeChat in France? Can you pay with CashApp in Ireland?
This is a very silly comment. I for one more than welcome this new payment system.
Instant no fee payments.
It's great Thailand has this, but I still fail to see how EU trying to copy Thailand (for a definition of copying) makes you lose faith in the EU. You would rather not have this no-fee payment system in the EU? How is this at all a negative thing?
>It's great Thailand has this, but I still fail to see how EU trying to copy Thailand (for a definition of copying) makes you lose faith in the EU. You would rather not have this no-fee payment system in the EU? How is this at all a negative thing?
The point is Thailand managed this due to economic, capitalist needs across different countries and cultures.
The EU is a union and did not even manage to do that as well as Thailand.
Thailand is just a country. Why are you comparing Thailand to the world's second biggest economy?
Are you really telling me that failing to coordinate several dozen countries, some with their own currency, is a showcase of failure of the EU?
This makes absolutely no sense.
That's whats so confusing about this Digital euro. Why not just push Wero? It already is cooperation of many banks that have presence all around europe. I guess difference is that Digital euro will be going through european central bank? That could be huge fail because by 2029 (when digital euro should start) SEPA instant payments with QR codes and initiatives like Wero will be super established.
Literally nothing prevented EU banks (or any other banks) from getting together and implementing this.
I have merchants/restaurants asking me if i can pay with QR instead of card because they get more money. And in local eCommerce all the online stores give it as option and often have it as prefered default.
I think the problem is that many countries have huge lag in adoption and often lie about it. Electronic crossborder prescriptions (ePrescription) was pushed and countries claimed to adopt it so they got some EU money yet when you are in Greece (one of the countries claiming support) nobody has ever really heard about ePrescription.
The other problem is constant Not invented here syndrom of Germany that never wants to adopt anything already running and instead invents their own variation.
> "The merchant will probably say to the customer: ‘please pay by digital euro, or else you pay an extra fee’. Instead of handing over so much money to Mastercard or Visa, they will have the option of our not-for-profit payment engine.”
But it's the EU who with the Payment Systems Directives bans merchants from passing the fees to customers. Annoying how this isn't even mentioned. Public officials should treat us as citizens of a democratic system, not subjects of techocratic bureaucracy to be managed with PR campaigns.
That said, payment system as public service is kinda a no-brainer. Due to the lobbyist capture of EU I don't have too high hopes though.
The ability to have mobile payment without the prying eyes of the American government alone could be a good ad. I'm sure Trump will start another trade war if an ad actually voices that benefit, though.
In theory, merchants can choose not to support certain payment processors. I can imagine a minimum-price supermarket chain like Lidl eventually dropping Visa and Mastercard to cut costs, for instance.
If I had to guess, having subbbed to the EC network, or any of the other country specific ones, merchants would simply get the new one as well automatically.
Similar things are happening with online ID where an EU-wide provider is being rolled out and if you as a service provider need KYC-type ID you integrate only with it. Under the hood the user can use any of the national IDs.
"Digital euro" sounds cute and modern though doesn't it. It'll fool many
If you criticise it you're obviously pro America and pro Visa/MasterCard or pro Russia because you obviously want the EU to fail!! It's clever to bundle it all up in one initiative
- a central bank digital currency, and
- a system for transferring this currency between people and businesses
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.ht...
It's not clear to me that it replaces Visa/Mastercard. If you have a problem with a vendor and you've paid by card, you have a chargeback as a last resort. Not so with cash or a CBDC.
I don't think I've seen a European debit card that offers charge back. You can often get your money back in case of fraud or timely-reported theft of your bank cards, but it's not easy.
The problem is to standardize all these things built on top of SEPA to work across the UNION.
I think ASEAN largely adhere to the standard though the cross-border part is limited to ASEAN.
EU is pro-privatization to the core. Keeping the production of goods and services outside the democratic sphere is arguably the raison d'etre of EU/EEA.
The 3000 euro limit will pose a problem for these businesses, though I suppose you could just take out half a dozen cards and rotate funds.
The banks are wary of the connection to human trafficking and the obvious 99% cash transactions.
Care to give a couple of examples?
This is only in the interest of the EU tyrants and absolutely no one else. And it'll cost another few billions
We saw recently that ICC judges were excluded of Visa/Mastercard/... payment system
source: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/11/19/n...
I think a lot of folks in Europe used to think there was some sort of red line America wouldn't cross, preferring to allow its (immensely profitable and dominant) tech companies to stay aloof of short-term "freedom fries" political squabbles. Turns out that's no longer the case, if it ever was.
[1] https://www.thenational.scot/news/25639977.icc-judge-says-us... [2] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/11/19/n...
As much as I'd like to pay in Euros in the UK, I don't think it'll happen.
[1] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.ht...
It's not equivalent to India, or the US.
It'd be more comparable to ASEAN (11) or the Arab league (22).
Yes, but also Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is a thing already (1). SEPA instant has been live in some places since 2017 (2).
1) https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/retail/sepa/html/index.en.htm...
2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area#SEPA...
In typical european nature the first standard was SPAYD (short payment descriptor) from Austria/Czechia/Slovakia but yeah two years later Germany/Netherlands had to come up with their different format EPC QR. But who cares the differences are trivial - just different structure of the QR string. My bank app supports both. The only thing this system needs is mandatory notification system / api so the sellers can get fast confirmation of the payment. Then again some banks already do that so you just pick right bank as seller.
Taking QR codes aside there is also Wero that is already running in many of the countries (Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France). I am not sure what the hell is digital euro? Will they rename Wero to digital euro or whats going on?
mau•1mo ago