Main European countries, including Germany, the Netherlands and Italy have called on stricter regulation for stablecoin issuers in order "to protect consumers and preserve state sovereignty in monetary policy," Reuters has learned.
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In a joint statement the finance ministers of the five European Union member said that stablecoins should be prohibited until legal, regulatory and oversight challenges had been addressed.
"We all agree that it is our task to keep financial market stable and to ensure that what is a task for states remains a task for states," German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said.
French Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, says the group is waiting for the Commission to present "very strong and very clear rules to avoid the misuse of cryptocurrencies for terrorist activities or for money laundering."
"The central bank, I mean the ECB, is the only one to be allowed to issue a currency. And this point, it is something that cannot be jeopardized or weakened by any kind of project including the so-called Libra project," she added.
iHodl previously reported that the European Commission is expected to reveal its regulatory proposals for central bank digital currencies (CBDC) later this month.
President of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, hinted that the central bank will decide soon enough on whether the European regions should develop their own central bank digital currency or not.
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