German public believes digital euro could be used for surveillance

Germany’s Deutsche Bundesbank announced the results of its survey; The survey showed that nearly 50% of respondents could “generally imagine” using a digital euro.

Many people in Germany are “open to the idea of ​​a digital euro,” according to the country’s central bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, which published the results of a survey of 2,012 people in April 2024.

According to the results, about half of those surveyed “could generally imagine using the digital euro as an additional payment option.”

“In the survey, people who were previously unaware of the digital euro also stated that they were open to this new form of payment. “The survey found that only 41% of respondents had heard, read or seen some information about the digital euro, while 59% knew nothing about it.”

German Bundesbank

However, there are still those who believe that the digital euro is intended to spy on citizens’ payments. Joachim Nagel, president of Deutsche Bundesbank, stated that 8 percent of the survey participants think that the digital euro “is intended to monitor the payment flow” and stated that “a lot of information still needs to be provided.”

“The survey shows us that a lot of information still needs to be provided and that we have set the right priorities, such as protecting privacy, in the preparatory work for new European payment instruments.”

Joachim Nagel

Burkhard Balz, Deutsche Bundesbank’s board member responsible for the cash and digital euro project, said that 16% of respondents still believe that the digital euro will be a cryptocurrency, adding that most respondents “still have incomplete knowledge about the digital euro.”

“The prices of crypto assets such as Bitcoin or Ethereum fluctuate strongly. They do not perform the traditional functions of a currency; The stability of their values ​​is not guaranteed by a central bank.”

Burkhard Balz

In early May, Deutsche Bundesbank found that nearly 90% of German households appeared “open” to the idea of ​​adopting a central bank digital currency (CBDC) during banking stress. At the time, the central bank found that many Germans were mostly open to CBDCs. Even if there were no fees, almost half of people said they would not mind having a digital euro.