FRANKFURT—European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde’s recent remarks on a “digital euro” prompted a fresh wave of misinformation online, highlighting an uphill battle ahead to convince the public of the project’s merits.
The decision to create a digital euro —essentially an electronic form of cash backed by the ECB — has not been made yet and any possible launch would be years away.
But when Lagarde in a press conference this month referenced an October 2025 deadline for moving to the next stage of preparations, social media lit up with alarmed messages that the launch was imminent.
Harald Vilimsky, a member of the European Parliament from Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), was among those posting that the ECB “wants to introduce the digital euro in October”, an incorrect claim that spread in several languages.
The claim was echoed on X by Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, the eurosceptic head of the Rise Up France party, who added that the project was “madness for our freedoms”. AFP