We support the digital Euro and we need to move quickly, Economy and Finance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis said in a statement at today’s ECOFIN meeting in Brussels. Noting that five important opportunities are opening up, including strengthening the EU‘s monetary sovereignty and financial integration.

The minister’s full statement reads as follows: “I thank the Danish Presidency for including this important issue on the agenda. We support the creation of the digital euro. This is an issue that we have supported from the beginning, as, especially in the current geopolitical environment, it is necessary to further strengthen our monetary sovereignty.”

In this light, we see that we face one threat and five opportunities in relation to the digital euro. Because at the end of the day, this is not just a technological debate; it is a strategic debate.

The threat, to put it bluntly, is not doing it fast enough. We have to not waste time, because digitalization in payments and the monetary system is going to happen and it has to happen fast enough. That is why we fully support the setting of a specific target to reach an agreement by the end of the year. We believe that discussions at the technical level can be completed by then.

The five opportunities, in my view, are obvious:

-Further digitisation of payments. I agree with many colleagues who have spoken before that digital payments should complement cash, not replace it completely. At the same time, the benefits of digitizing payments are obvious in many countries- and certainly in mine. If you compare the tax evasion situation in Greece 10 years ago with today, it is due to digital payments that we have managed to have a primary surplus of 4.8% and to capture two-thirds of the VAT gap. We need to further strengthen digital payments.

– Strengthen our monetary sovereignty. Today, we mainly use non-European payment systems within our market. We need to create our own national systems. Some countries have already done so; Greece has the IRIS system. There is interoperability between us, but the digital euro also has a monetary dimension, beyond the payments part, which is very critical, and we need to invest in it.

– Monetary integration. We need to offer a zero-cost alternative to foreign payment systems; and the digital euro can be that alternative.

– Privacy. It is not a threat, but an opportunity. We can ensure better privacy conditions. Maybe not complete anonymity like cash, but certainly better conditions than existing non-European systems.

– Incentive for innovation and efficiency. The digital euro will act as a signal for innovation in payments, contributing to the wider digital and technological transformation.

In conclusion, as I stressed at the beginning, this is not a technological but a strategic debate. And for this very reason, we need to move forward with great speed.”