From “slaynews.com”
European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde has confirmed that the “digital euro” will be rolled out in Europe this year.
Lagarde revealed that the European Union’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) will launch in October 2025.
The ECB has been working on the digital euro for over five years.
It is currently in the “preparation phase” which started in November 2023.
The October launch of the digital euro is the next phase.
In October, the actual rollout of the digital euro will begin across the EU member states.
During a press conference, Lagarde said:
“The deadline for us [to make the digital euro a reality] is going to be October 2025 and we are getting ready for that deadline.”
“But, we will not be able to move unless the other parties, the stakeholders as I call them – [European] Commission, Council, and Parliament – actually complete the legislative process, without which we will not be able to move.”
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It comes as many question the feasibility and necessity of a CBDC.
Concerns include government overreach, data privacy, and the challenge of integrating the digital euro into the financial system.
In a post on LinkedIn last year, Lagarde claimed:
“We envisage a digital euro as a digital form of cash that could be used for all digital payments, free of charge, and that meets the highest privacy standards.
“It would co-exist alongside physical cash, leaving no one behind.”
However, experts dispute her claim that a CBDC could co-exist alongside physical cash.
As Forbes pointed out:
“While the Digital Euro is slated to ‘co-exist’ with cash, this also comes when EU nations are voting on ending end-to-end encryption (a critical digital privacy tool) and have started to restrict cash with limits being placed on how much you can spend in cash to accelerate its slow demise.”
Forbes had previously noted that central banks around the Eurozone cited the need for the digital euro because of the declining use of cash in society and the rise of private solutions such as cryptocurrencies.
The news comes after Lagarde claimed last year that banks must switch to CBDCs to fight “climate change.”
As Slay News reported, banks in Europe started rolling out “digital transformations” to usher in “cashless societies” to comply with the ECB plan to supposedly “save the planet” from “global warming.”
As part of the ECB’s “climate and nature plan,” banks that operate in the bloc have been reviewed to ensure they are making steps toward eliminating physical cash.
The financial institutions are being subjected to on-site inspections to monitor the progress of their “digital transformations.”
To comply with the “digital transformation” goals, banks must prove they are entering into the preparation phase of the digital euro.
In January last year, Lagarde posted a video on social media to announce the push to digital cash as part of the bank’s “green transition.”
In a video post on X, the caption stated:
“A hotter climate and nature loss are changing our lives.
“We must understand what this means for the economy to fulfill our mandate.
“With our climate and nature plan, we are intensifying our efforts to help underpin stability and support the green transition.”
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A hotter climate and nature loss are changing our lives. We must understand what this means for the economy to fulfil our mandate.
With our climate and nature plan, we are intensifying our efforts to help underpin stability and support the green transition https://t.co/3LyXPw5zLH pic.twitter.com/R1l1q53xaq— Christine Lagarde (@Lagarde) January 30, 2024