Digital euro, Dombrovskis: “Mandatory acceptance is necessary”

Brussels – The “mandatory acceptance of the digital euro” is “necessary”, said the Commissioner for the Economy, Valdis Dombrovskis, in response to a parliamentary question. “The legal basis” for making the digital euro compulsory is Article 133 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), Dombrovskis said. In other words, the European Commission’s proposal “grants the digital euro, as a new, digital form of the single currency, legal tender status,” in the same way as banknotes and coins, for which acceptance is mandatory. The Commissioner for Economic Affairs insists that the latter is “necessary to ensure the effective use of the euro as the EU’s single currency, which is the very objective of Article 133 of the TFEU.” 

“The mandatory acceptance will allow the digital euro to enjoy a sufficiently uniform level of acceptance throughout the euro area. In the absence of this acceptance requirement, there would be a risk that the digital euro is accepted only selectively, leading to a fragmented usability of the digital euro, which stands in contrast to the aim of Article 133 of the TFEU,” Dombrovskis concludes.