BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Eurozone Finance ministers are worried that changes to policy under the new US administration to embrace cryptocurrencies could affect the eurozone’s financial sovereignty and financial stability, a senior official said Monday.
Last week, US President Donald Trump, who vowed to be “crypto president” in his campaign, signed an executive order to establish a strategic cryptocurrency reserve using tokens already owned by the government.
“The development of policy in other jurisdictions could have significant consequences for us here in Europe,” Minister Pascal Donohoe told a press conference after the minister discussed the development of cryptocurrency.
“These arguments are fundamentally linked to our own autonomy and currencies,” he says, adding that the creation of a digital euro by the European Central Bank is now important to preempt the curve.
The ECB has been working on creating a digital euro since 2020 after Facebook announced a year ago that it wanted to announce its own digital currency called Libra. The Facebook plan raised concerns between US and European regulators.
The Libra project was later renamed Diem and was fizzed out in early 2022, but Pierre Gramegna, head of the European stability mechanism, the Euro Zone Bailout Fund, told reporters that accepting US cryptocurrency could spur large-scale technology companies and launch their own payment systems.
“() Discussion… I stressed that it is also European sovereignty that is at stake here,” Gramegna said.
“The US administration’s stance has changed compared to the past. The US administration is favored by cryptocurrencies, particularly stubcoins caused by dollars. This could rekindle plans in Europe for foreign and US tech giants.
“If this is successful, it could affect the financial sovereignty and financial stability of the eurozone,” he said.
(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski, edited by Lincoln Feast.)