Greece's Ministry of National Economy and Finance urges ECOFIN to reach agreement on the digital euro package by year-end

Greece's Ministry of National Economy and Finance published remarks by Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis at the ECOFIN meeting in Brussels supporting the creation of a digital euro and calling for rapid progress, including an objective to reach agreement on the package by the end of the year. He framed the project as a strategic, not purely technological, issue and identified the main risk as moving too slowly. The minister set out five opportunities from a digital euro: further digitisation of payments while keeping cash as a complement, reinforcing monetary sovereignty given reliance on non-European payment systems, providing a zero-cost alternative to foreign payment systems, improving privacy protections (though not full cash-like anonymity), and supporting innovation and efficiency in payments as part of wider digital transformation. As an illustration of the benefits of digital payments, he pointed to Greece’s experience, linking increased use of digital payments to a primary budget surplus of 4.8% and closing two-thirds of the VAT gap. He indicated that technical discussions could be completed in time to support agreement by the end of the year.