According to Mediobianca, the digital euro could strengthen the position of the European Union in the geopolitical framework that the pandemic is helping to outline, increasingly influenced by the tug of war between China and the United States.
The digital euro will save Europe. According to this opinion, Mediobanca, a Milanese credit institution, sees in the future continental cryptocurrency the instrument in the hands of Brussels to defend itself from the crossfire on the China-United States axis, the two dueling superpowers for global economic leadership. With the ECB's public consultation on the new digital currency running out in January, the next steps include the launch of the first trials by the end of 2021 and the launch of digital currency over the next five years.
Digital euro to save Europe
The pandemic has helped to mix the cards, therefore: China, after being attacked by the virus in the megalopolis of Wuhan just over a year ago, has managed to restore the national economy, while Washington continues to pump liquidity into the US system to defibrillate economic fundamentals deteriorated by the health crisis. And so, inevitably, Beijing now aims toto oust the United States from the throne to establish itself as the world's leading economy by 2028, and the international role of the dollar could also end up in the crosshairs, given the Dragon's (very high) ambitions on the digital yuan, Chinese crypto now at an advanced stage of experimentation.
Why China looks to the US with fear
A close duel, with the EU in the middle of dodging the blows: the trade war between the two superpowers is in fact putting pressure on the European model driven by exports, with Brussels now seems divided between the two sides, despite the long-standing relationship with our American partners. A rain of sanctions, tariffs and customs duties has ended in fact to deteriorate a centuries-old history of synergies and affinities, and the agreement signed last December by Brussels and Beijing has done the rest, relaunching China as the first trading partner of the old continent.