The ECB’s “digital euro” heralds the arrival of digital serfdom

By
BrusselsReport.eu
-

By Paul Boonefaes, an author, commentator and podcast host at Doorbraak.be 

“Rid the world of bankruns with a digital currency” is the headline of an article in Flemish financial paper De Tijd of March 24th. There, Prof. Jan Eeckhout, economics professor at the University of Pompeu, advocates for the rapid introduction of a so-called “Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)”. According to him, the CBDC is “a disruptive solution that will rule out bank runs forever.” The professor argues that, thanks to the CBDC, “your savings will be safe and the financial system will be stable”. He concludes his argument maintaining that he fears that “a lobby of private banks” will try to block this magical CBDC solution. He admiringly refers to Canada and China, both of which have advanced plans for the introduction of such a digital currency. “Who could be against it, except for traditional banks that see their profits diminish?” the professor asks.

The argument put forward by Prof Eeckhout is overly simplistic. It ignores important essential features of the CBDC, which is more an instrument of absolute control for an almighty government than it is a monetary instrument. Combating bank runs by introducing the CBDC is like trying to combat fever by breaking all thermometers. This “solution” ignores the underlying and much more fundamental problem of mismanagement of public funds by reckless governments. Irresponsible politicians spend more than they should, causing debt to explode and forcing interest rates to remain artificially low. This creates all kinds of bubbles in the financial markets and all of this eventually leads to massive impoverishment due to skyrocketing inflation. This then causes central banks to abruptly raise rates in the end, which in turn causes banks to collapse. This mayhem may then culminate in a bankrun. At the root of such crises are: political mismanagement, a complete lack of fiscal discipline, and cowardice in taking necessary measures. CBDC does nothing to cure these fundamental flaws. On the contrary, it actively increases the power of the politicians that have implemented such policies.

In a democracy, voters should be able to punish irresponsible policies. Once the CBDC is in place, this will no longer be possible. A “digital coin” is much more an instrument of totalitarian control than a means of payment. It completely changes what we understand by the notion of “money”. After all, this new digital money will no longer be yours. Today, we decide for ourselves what we spend our money on. Once the digital coin is here, the government will decide all that for us. There will be no more freedom or privacy left. The government, through the CBDC, will deprive its citizens of their right to manage their own assets or even make their own choices. And that is, to put it mildly, incompatible with the principles and basic freedoms in a Western liberal democracy. It is even the complete negation of it.

The opposite of cryptocurrencies

We need to clearly outline what a CBDC is. Many wrongly compare the CBDC to the cryptocurrencies we already know, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. This is false. A CBDC has diametrically opposed characteristics. Cryptocurrencies are decentralized, completely anonymous, and allow citizens total freedom (and therefore power) to the detriment of unelected central bankers and overspending governments. The architecture of such a coin is called “token-based” in jargon.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is planning the exact opposite of such ‘token’ architecture with its plans for an account based Central Bank Digital Currency. A CBDC is centrally managed, as the name itself suggests, by the unelected leadership of a central bank. The CBDC is not anonymous, as a digital coin is programmable, no matter what politicians and central bankers may say about it. This crucial feature (which is not included in Crypto coins) will allow the government to monitor, direct, and punish citizens’ behavior down to the smallest detail. If this programmability is not present in the first iteration, it can easily be introduced in any of the next iterations.

The CBDC is a Trojan horse for an unprecedented shift of power from unsuspecting citizens to an unelected EU bureaucracy that is becoming increasingly authoritarian, backed by a small group of unelected central bankers. According to very real plans and documents that are currently discreetly prepared by the ECB, soon you will have to log in to your CBDC wallet with your European Digital Identity, eliminating any remaining privacy or anonymity.

Enabling total state control

We can read in documents published by the ECB that this fundamental choice has already been made. This is a total negation and attack on our privacy and our freedom. Through the CBDC, the government will have absolute control over your life. Those were the very words used by Agustin Carstens, General Manager of the Bank Of International Settlements (BIS) which is the Central Bank of Central Banks. They will be able to track, restrict, block, and punish all your financial transactions down to the last euro. This will mark the end of free will and free speech. The CBDC is the dream of every dictator and the nightmare of every democrat. Obviously this is not how it is being marketed.

Apart from dictatorial regimes and the left-liberal globalist “managerial elite” (which at best represent barely 15% of the population), there is not a single democrat who wants to implement this system. That’s why Citizens will not be asked to vote on the introduction of this digital currency. The introduction is currently being prepared by the ECB in cooperation with the European Council and the European Commission. A qualified majority of the European Council will vote on it in 2025, and the powerless EU citizen will be faced with a ‘fait accompli’.

The importance of this radical shift cannot be underestimated. The CBDC heralds the beginning of digital slavery, a kind of digital serfdom. Professor Eeckhout refers to Canada and China with admiration, not coincidentally. Totalitarian China not only tramples on human rights, but privacy has been replaced by a dehumanizing Orwellian “social credit system.” Thanks to the digital Yuan, China can arbitrarily control, restrict, and block the financial freedom of every citizen. Soon, thanks to the CBDC, the EU will be able to determine your behavior and opinions in the smallest detail: how often you travel, how much CO2 you consume, and which purchases you are allowed to make. This is the wet dream of powerful European climate activists and radical woke elites. Ultimately, “woke” is an attack on our freedom and our democracy. The CBDC is both a point of no return and the culmination of woke insanity. Once it is here, resistance will be futile and voting it down will be impossible.

New instruments, such as the ability to apply a negative interest rate, are already featured in the footnotes of ECB documents. This way, the debt crisis can be pushed to ordinary folk who will watch their savings disappear. The Central Bank will also be able to determine the velocity of this new digital money by programming an expiration date or time limits into your digital coin, forcing you to spend it by a certain deadline. Or they can simply “cancel” your wallet if you don’t toe the line. Fines may automatically disappear from your account. And the nature and number of those fines is certain to explode. Once the CBDC is here, think carefully before posting any kind of government criticism on your social media. It may cost you dearly. Opposition will  belong to the past. Forget the possibility of voting out those all-powerful elites.

Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau is not coincidentally at the forefront of introducing the Canadian CBDC. During the Covid protests, he notoriously blocked the bank accounts of Canadian truckers and their sympathizers to break their democratic resistance against his drastic and scientifically disproven Covid policy. PM Trudeau has expressed great admiration for the Chinese authoritarian model. Naturally he wants the Canadian CBDC sooner rather than later. It is scheduled to arrive in the EU as from 2025.

From a democratic perspective, all alarm bells should now be ringing.

Originally published on Doorbraak.be and pboonefaes.substack.com

Disclaimer: www.BrusselsReport.eu will under no circumstance be held legally responsible or liable for the content of any article appearing on the website, as only the author of an article is legally responsible for that, also in accordance with the terms of use.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR