​ECB president confesses to using CBDC to spy on users

What’s new? European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde said that the digital euro could be used to monitor payments made by individuals. She allowed the possibility that the regulator would only leave transfers of up to four hundred euros unsupervised. Lagarde said this in a conversation with the pranksters from the channel Show VL, one of whom impersonated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The video was first published on the Rumble platform on March 16.

Link to the full video

What other statements were made? As part of a discussion about the negative reaction of European citizens to the possible launch of the digital euro, the person impersonating Zelensky suggested that people did not want to be controlled. In response, Lagarde acknowledged that there would indeed be control, but in a limited way.

“There will be control, you’re right. You’re completely right. There would be a limited amount of control. We are considering whether for very small amounts, anything that is around 300, 400 euros, we could have a mechanism where there is zero control. But that could be dangerous,” the ECB head added

According to Lagarde, terrorist financing is also possible through small anonymous transactions. As an argument in favor of CBDC, she named the independence of Europe both from currencies of unfriendly countries (like Russia and China) and from friendly currencies, which are managed by private corporations (like Facebook and Google) and may threaten the sovereignty of Europe.

In March, the EU proposed obliging merchants to accept the digital euro if it is recognized as legal tender and given the same status as fiat currency.

In May 2022, the regulator called the anonymity of digital euro users an undesirable option for the further development of the asset. And in December, it allowed the possibility that the asset could be issued without the use of blockchain technology.

Active opposition to the launch of the state digital currency was noted in the United States. Thus, a member of the Democratic Party, Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. said that a CBDC would lead the country into financial slavery and political tyranny because of the possibility of control of the asset by the central bank. Republican Senator Ted Cruz also believes that CBDC can be used as a tool for financial oversight.