German public believes digital euro could be used for surveillance

Germany’s Deutsche Bundesbank has revealed the results of its survey, showing that around 50% of the respondents could “generally imagine” using a digital euro.

Many people in Germany are “open to the idea of the digital euro,” according to the Deutsche Bundesbank, the country’s central bank, which published the results of a survey conducted among 2,012 people in April 2024.

As per the results, around half of the respondents “could generally imagine using a digital euro as an additional payment option.”

“People who were previously unaware of the digital euro also indicated that they were open to this new means of payment in the survey. The survey revealed that only 41% of respondents had already heard, read or seen some information about the digital euro, whereas 59% did not know anything about it.”

Deutsche Bundesbank

Yet, there’re still those who believe that the digital euro was intended to spy on citizen’s payments. Deutsche Bundesbank president Joachim Nagel noted that a “great deal of information still needs to be provided” as 8% of respondents said they think that the digital euro “was intended to monitor payment flow.”

“The survey shows us that a great deal of information still needs to be provided and that we have set the right priorities, such as privacy protection, in the preparatory work for the new European means of payment.”

Joachim Nagel

Deutsche Bundesbank executive board member responsible for cash and the digital euro project Burkhard Balz added that many respondents “still had patchy knowledge about the digital euro,” as 16% of respondents still believe that the digital euro will be a cryptocurrency.

“The prices of crypto-assets such as Bitcoin or Ethereum fluctuate strongly. They do not fulfil the traditional functions of a currency; the stability of their value is not vouched for by a central bank.”

Burkhard Balz

In early May, the Deutsche Bundesbank revealed that nearly 90% of German households “appear open” to the idea of embracing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) during banking stress. At the time, the central bank found that many Germans were mainly open to CBDCs. Even without remuneration, almost half of the people said they would be okay with having digital euros.