The European Union has made an announcement about its plans for a CBDC development in the near future. As reported by Politico, a bill is set to be introduced in 2023 that will account for the first European digital currency.
EU finance chief Mairead McGuinness confirmed the news, saying that the “goal is to table legislation in early 2023” and that we can expect “a targeted legislative consultation in the coming weeks.”
The EU thus joins the list of countries that are beginning to push their own CBDCs out of fear of being overtaken by other unregulated digital assets, such as Bitcoin. "If we don’t satisfy this demand, then others will do it," said the ECB Executive Board member Fabio Panetta.
In-house experiments with digital Euro are being conducted at the moment, with ECB’s plans to start developing a prototype later in 2023. However, it all depends on how and when the CBDC bill gets discussed and most probably implemented later on. The early estimates point towards the digital currency’s adoption in 2025.
So far, CBDCs have been announced in several countries, including India, Malaysia, Japan, and South Korea. China is already currently testing the digital Juan in the Olympic village. Surprisingly, no official announcement has been made so far about a US CBDC. According to recent events, it seems that Europe will one-up the US in this matter.
