Slovakia fears launch of cryptocurrency euro

The Slovak government plans to amend the Constitution as a preventive measure to protect against the digital euro. The right-wing populist We Are Family party has succeeded in passing a constitutional amendment that would recognize the right of Slovaks to pay in cash.

Along with this innovation, a clause will be added to the main law of the state, allowing store sellers to refuse to pay customers in cash. This measure is intended to reduce the number of robberies and reduce the risk of contracting infectious diseases.

«It is important that the Constitution has a law on the basis of which we can defend ourselves in the future against any orders issued from outside that prescribe the use of only the digital euro as a means of payment ,» said Miloš Svrček, a member of the Slovak National Council.

Slovak analysts who are studying the digital euro at the behest of the European Parliament fear that the issuance of CBDC will jeopardize the privacy of citizens' personal data. «The turnover of the digital euro will be under the control of a single government agency, so officials will be able to track all transactions without any problems ,» the experts said.

However, most analysts believe that Slovakia’s concerns are unfounded. According to the EU’s draft law on the digital euro, neither the European Central Bank (ECB) nor payment service providers will have access to personal data during transactions.

According to the draft law, shops will be obliged to accept the digital euro and not charge additional interest for this service. The only possible reasons for refusal are if the stores are ultra-small businesses or if they have a power outage.

Currently, the European Parliament has postponed the publication of the final version of the draft law on the EU digital currency. Citing sources close to the European Parliament, CoinDesk reported that the approval of the final version of the proposals caused a disagreement among members of the commission on privacy and the technical implementation of the CBDC issue.