Der Digitalisierungszwang – umgeschrieben in anderen Worten auf Deutsch ohne Sonderzeichen und Satzzeichen, aber mit Umlauten: Der Digitalisierungszwang

Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel spoke of a further „stage of development“ of state money, „after coins and banknotes“. Now the draft regulation on the digital euro is here. At the same time, several European newspapers published the words of Fabio Panetta, a member of the six-member executive board of the European Central Bank (ECB), and Valdis Dombrovskis, the deputy alongside Ursula von der Leyen, on June 28, 2023: „Our world is changing. Digitization has changed our society in a way that we could hardly have imagined ten years ago. It also changes our payment behavior: people are increasingly opting for electronic payment methods. The corona pandemic has accelerated this change in thinking.“ That is precisely why „adapting cash to the digital age is the next logical step“. What the two gentlemen forgot: their contribution to the fact that the financial industry was able to expand its influence on the payment market. In spring 2020, the credit card company Visa lobbied Dombrovskis for contactless payments up to 50 euros. The EU Commissioner supported the proposal and publicly called on citizens to „exchange coins for payment cards“. The EURO Kartensysteme GmbH, a company of German banks and savings banks, launched an aggressive campaign in parallel: „If you want to do yourself and the people working at the checkout a favor, you should use the card these days and preferably even pay contactlessly or with your smartphone.“ Although the European Central Bank was aware that the concern that one could become ill from contact with banknotes was unfounded (1), the responsible director, Fabio Panetta, did not publicly clarify this in a high-profile manner. He neither wrote a separate article on the subject in the daily newspapers nor did his institution issue a prominent press release. Who else should have done that? Cash has no lobby. On October 2, 2020, the European Central Bank introduced the digital euro and referred to the significant decline in cash payments. E-euro plans in detail Perhaps one understands the attitude of the European Central Bank better if one listens to the speech by Benoît Cœuré, then a member of the ECB’s Executive Board for France. On May 18, 2015, he spoke at a non-public meeting with investors in London: „The abolition of cash is conceivable, but such a step should be the result of changing technologies.“ A social change must precede political measures. The European Commission supports this with its proposal for the design of the electronic euro. In order to use the digital currency, bank customers should ask their credit institution to open a separate, free account. The process is recorded centrally. On the new account, the citizen may keep a limited amount of e-euros. In addition, he can have ordinary bank balances paid out – not in the form of banknotes, but digital coins. Unfortunately, everyone is only allowed to own a limited amount of e-euros, according to the ECB’s proposal, initially 3,000 euros. While bank balances are money owned by a credit institution or a debt to the customer and can therefore be lost in the event of bank insolvency, this risk exists for digital euros as little as for traditional banknotes. In the words of Edward Snowden, however, it is a currency that „denies its users the basic ownership of their money“. Because real cash is fully under one’s own control. An e-euro is not a free data package. No one can move the digital coin to another hard drive as they please. On behalf of the state, banks are to provide their electronic infrastructure so that citizens can send and receive e-euros. Without this help, the citizen is unable to act. At least there is a desire to enable payments even without a connection to the internet or mobile network. Friends can send small amounts of money to each other by simply tapping their smartphones together, like others do with their beer glasses. In principle, the European Commission is following the advice of former Goldman Sachs advisor Willem Buiter. In 200

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Der Digitalisierungszwang

Bundesbank-Präsident Joachim Nagel sprach von einer weiteren „Stufe der Entwicklung“ staatlichen Geldes, „nach Münzen und Banknoten“. Nun ist der Entwurf zu einer Verordnung über den digitalen Euro da. Zeitgleich veröffentlichten mehrere europäische Tageszeitungen am 28. Juni 2023 die Worte von Fabio Panetta, Mitglied im sechsköpfigen Leitungsgremium der Europäischen Zentralbank (EZB), und Valdis Dombrovskis, dem Stellvertreter an der Seite Ursula von der Leyens: „Unsere Welt befindet sich im Wandel. Die Digitalisierung hat unsere Gesellschaft in einer Weise verändert, die wir uns vor zehn Jahren nur schwerlich hätten vorstellen können. Sie verändert auch unser Zahlungsverhalten: Die Menschen entscheiden sich immer häufiger für elektronische Zahlungsmittel. Die Corona-Pandemie hat dieses Umdenken beschleunigt.“ Genau deshalb sei „die Anpassung des Bargelds an das digitale Zeitalter der

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