A digital euro has a key role to play in safeguarding European payment autonomy, according to European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde.
According to Business Times, she warned that it’s very unhealthy to rely on a single source for critical aspects of daily life. This was highlighted by Russia’s decision to weaponise energy supply following its invasion of Ukraine.
“When you look at your wallet and you look at your telephone and see the applications that you use for payments or the cards that you use for payment, you very soon realise that those means of payments are not necessarily European,” she told a virtual panel on central-bank digital currencies hosted by the Bank for International Settlements.
“So we just have to be careful,” she added. “Some people will call it sovereign autonomy, I prefer to call it resilience because that’s really what it is.”
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has said it will make proposals for a legal framework for a digital euro by the end of June. A final decision on whether to go ahead with it will come later.
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