Greece's Ministry of National Economy and Finance published a speech by Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis at the European Investment Bank Group Forum 2026, linking Europe’s competitiveness agenda to the Savings and Investment Union and to modernising financial-market infrastructure through digital finance. He framed the push as a way to mobilise savings more effectively for innovation and business scale-up, while also noting that escalating geopolitical shocks are already feeding through to higher energy, transport and insurance costs. Pierrakakis pointed to around EUR 1.4 trillion in annual European savings, much of it held in low-yield deposits, alongside lower investment in innovation relative to the United States, citing EU research and development spending of about 2.2% of GDP versus about 3.4% and venture capital investment of about 0.3% of GDP versus about 0.7%. Distributed ledger technologies and tokenisation were presented as tools to reduce friction in clearing and settlement, cut issuance and intermediation costs, speed up cross-border payments and broaden access to investment, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises. He also flagged risks around fragmentation, the speed and volatility of crypto-assets and stablecoins, and systemic cyber risk, with the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation cited as an example of how rule-making can underpin trust. On the digital euro, he said work is moving from the preparation phase to the next stage of technical development, and outlined an indicative sequence in which agreement on the legislative framework in 2026 could be followed by a pilot in 2027, with the system ready for possible adoption around 2029.

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