Donald Trump’s embrace of cryptocurrencies is worrying for Europe, says an official in the 27-nation bloc.

“It could eventually reignite foreign and US tech giants’ plans to launch mass payment solutions based on dollar-denominated stablecoins,” said Pierre Gramegna, the managing director of European Stability Mechanism, a European Union intergovernmental organisation.

“And, if this were to be successful, it could affect the euro area’s monetary sovereignty and financial stability.”

He made the comments on the back of a meeting of eurozone finance ministers.

To tackle this threat, he urged the European Central Bank to make “the digital euro a reality to safeguard Europe’s strategic autonomy.”

The concerns come after the US president signed a smattering of pro-crypto policises, pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, appointed industry-friendly candidates to key government positions, and swore to end the Biden era’s crypto crackdown.

Libra fears

Gramegna echoed concerns made by EU leaders in 2019 when Facebook and a consortium of e-commerce, technology, and financial firms announced plans to launch Libra, a cryptocurrency controlled by those companies.

The project was later rebranded as Diem and sparked a backlash from both politicians and advocates who feared it would jeopardise states’ monetary sovereignty, and individual privacy.

Facebook’s scandal with Cambridge Analytica had only been unearthed in 2018, and had revealed how the Trump campaign misused 87 million Facebook users’ data.

In response, the EU started to create a central bank digital currency, the digital euro.

Facebook-owner Meta later scrapped the project after several partners abandoned the Diem Association.

Trump’s embrace of cryptocurrencies have reignited concerns among eurozone leaders.

“We know this is a global market and policy developments in other jurisdictions can have important consequences for us here in Europe,” Paschal Donohoe, chair of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, said in a statement.

“So these discussions are fundamentally linked to our own autonomy and to the resilience of our currency. The digital euro is critical to staying ahead of the curve in this area.”

Erwin Voloder, head of policy at the European Blockchain Association, told Inside Solana on Tuesday that concerns among members of Europe’s 20-nation currency zone can be traced back to Trump’s sweeping January 23 executive order.

In it, the president banned agencies within the US from any work to create or promote a CBDC.

“It’s a threat insofar Europe doubles down on CBDCs while other leading jurisdictions go in a different direction,” Voloder said.

Eric Johansson is Inside Solana’ News Editor. Got a tip? Email at eric@dlnews.com.