What could possibly go wrong with asking citizens from 27 different nations who already on numerous occasions complained they felt that they weren't being heard by neither their own country since it dragged them into the EU, as well as Brussels itself, about a full on control digital currency based on Bitcoin but centralized by the ECB with absolutely no privacy nor individual control? In short: everything! I honestly think the EU is putting this out not with the question of whether or not to go ahead with the Euro CDBD, but to know exactly what to say when the time comes they do go ahead with it. Apart from the words "I'm against" the key words that kept showing up the most were privacy, cash, control, and freedom. So I can already see what statement Brussels will come out with when the time comes: "Dear Europeans, the Digital Euro will be non-counterfeit cash which will ensure you have complete control over your money and privacy on what/who you spend it on".

Let's look back on how they handled such a big step the first time around, I remember when the Euro was about to be introduced and numerous national currencies that survived centuries were suddenly becoming a part of history, becoming nothing more than a collectible. The annoying dual-currency phase and adaptions to price and cash differences aside, what struck me the most even at a young age was how the people's response to the forcible change was being perceived by people interviewed by the media and put on TV, as oppose to people we all daily met and knew in real life. It was like night and day, in the media people were literally celebrating, drinking beer and partying because the Euro was "finally" here, in real life everyone I knew or asked their opinion was skeptical, angry or even depressed, we all knew that an era of sovereignty and our nation as we knew it had ended and an uncertain future with unforeseen difficulties lied ahead. Fast forward 20 years and hundred billions in bail outs later and millions of people who'd opposed what's been happening in their country the past decades, now still have to endure the same entity trying to chip away what little is left of their independence and freedom. Wait, what? They gave us all a free set of coins worth 3,88 at the Euro introduction in 2002 so they might do so again with the CBDC Euro introduction? Ohh well never mind then, let me join the party, Viva la Union.🥳🍻🎉

Anyways, to start off 98% of the replies are from citizens in the EU and most of the replies are in German due to the top 3 countries being Germany and Austria.

I need to highlight one very, very crucial and borderline schizo-level mistake the good people at the European Commission made, which effectively renders the entire research and the replies useless. I honestly didn't even see one single student make these type of errors in my first year at any course. In the very first paragraph they state "A digital euro is a central bank liability offered in digital form for use by people and businesses, which would complement cash and private payment means."

Hmmm, ok so, great, just an addendum to our lives and money options. But then in the summary it literally says: "This initiative aims to establish and regulate essential aspects of the digital euro as a new form of central bank money, which could be issued by the European Central Bank/Eurosystem alongside banknotes and coins."😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

I was honestly really looking forward in doing a full statistical/research analysis to this topic in relation to the feedback, but I don't even know how to correctly approach it now. It's literally impossible and the replies are completely useless, I mean, are they coming from people who just quickly read the intro and thought "Oh it could huh? Yeah I know where that's going"? Is it coming from people who completely examined the PDF attachment and thought "Ok, no worries then, cash will stay"? Or is it from people who read both or possibly even neither? My guess would be they either read just the intro or nothing at all, since most replies are advocating for cash to remain and I didn't find a single reply that pointed out this incoherent lunacy. But that's not how this is supposed to work. The data should not be "guessed" on by the researcher, it should be cold factual and tangible data that can easily be translated into numbers and statistics, to then make sense of the main subject in question. Who in the ***** adds a five page attachment which instead of elaborating on the main statement, actually contradicts it? Ahhh forget it, you know what, let's just read through the replies to at least see how people feel about the EU, Euro and CDBC currency in general.

So how do people generally feel about it? Well, let's just say by scrolling through and translating reoccurring words, I've learned that "Nesouhlasím" is suspiciously similar to "Nesúhlasím" and that it means "to disagree" in Czech and Slovakian. Oh and whenever you see "bargeld" it means he/she is advocating for the existence of cash money, the Austrians and Germans are not advocating for booze money😂 So I tried to categorize the positive and negative reposes and display a percentage. Each page has 10 responses and there are at time of writing 1215 pages. Thus a minimum of 12000 replies in which, I kid you not 99% replied negative to the EU's proposal of a CBDC Euro. The only reason it's not a full 100% is because I actually managed to find two positive replies to the proposal and four somewhat acceptable replies based on preconditions. It does mean something though when out of the +98% participants that were citizens/an individual, one of the already scarce positive replies was from a business.

I guess someone is trying to say they are willing to accept the millions of Euros in subsidies by CBDC. Ha, touche 🤺

Just the fact that this was what the very first response the EU got pretty much says it all: "Dear Commission, in my opinion the digital euro does not serve to curb undeclared money and/or money laundering or to simplify payments, it only serves to monitor EU citizens! This is NOT justified purely based on the data protection law alone, as well as ethical and liberal reasons! Please vote against it!" The comparison to Bitcoin was bound to be made of course: As a German citizen, I strongly reject a "digital euro" CBDC. It can (and eventually will) be abused as a means to invade citizens' financial privacy. Accounts can be frozen, can be compromised with negative interest rates, etc. We already have Bitcoin as a global settlement layer, the world's most secure financial infrastructure. As a German citizen, I ask the EU to be more open to cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin, and instead of a CBDC help establish a EURO stablecoin on Bitcoin rails (similar to what the US is doing)". And as it turned out, they were not alone and with good reason to be honest, I don't think I and many others would ever have been interested in Bitcoin if people themselves couldn't have full control over their own coins. The fact I could even mine it and help process transfers was a bonus, for me the control and sovereignty part was what was most appealing and made me realize this would possibly be revolutionary. If Bitcoin was introduced to me but was always stable i.e. no value fluctuation, didn't need me for the transfers and even had me give up control over my possession to a third party, I would most likely say something like "No thanks, I already have a bank account that allows me to see numbers on a screen at home". Which is pretty much what these two people summarized: 🙋"I am against the introduction of a digital currency in the EU, at the moment, most transactions or payments are already carried out digitally anyway. A digital currency is therefore unnecessary". 🙋‍♂️"I think a central bank digital currency is of little to no use. Today, 80% of the people use their bank card for all their transactions, which is already digitally on the owner's account."

This guy's country is not even in the Eurozone but still took his chance to point out his country should stay out of the Euro and the Euro should stay out of CBDCs: "I am fundamentally against the euro in the Czech Republic and I am even more against the digital euro for the EU!!!" But you know, this raises an interesting point, what about countries in the EU that still have their own currency? Some use dual currencies in a lot of places where tourists can practically pay with both the national currency and Euros, what future will a CBDC Euro hold for them? These are the type of scenarios we should be getting answers to before any of this becomes a reality, which I again must stress I think definitely will. This is the ultimate dream for authoritarians, I mean, just imagine being able to write in the contract that all payment made to X wallet are only allowed to be spend of food, water and rent for the next year, because he/she is under restriction and surveillance because they once send funds to Y wallet which was at a farmers/tractor protests and got convicted for it? Which is btw what this somewhat positive reply from Luxembourg correctly summarized "I would only agree to a digital euro under the following conditions: 1) absolute privacy, neither individuals, companies, banks or institutions should be able to freely track my transactions 2) the digital euro should absolutely not replace cash 3) no transaction costs 4) we would need guarantees that EU institutions or individual governments would not be able to modify, change or freeze balances for non-criminal actions". I understand this attempt to reason with them and to only accept it under certain terms and guarantees, but there is no reasoning with the beast. What guarantee would you possibly get other than their "word" and what's to stop them from passing laws that vehicle protests are a criminal act come 2023? Do we need a reminder what damages "trust me bro" can do? A wise person looks for patterns and tries to estimate in which direction the future will go, case in point: "After all that happened in Canada with the trucker demonstrations, it is clear that the digital euro means an end to free democracy. That's why I'm against it."

These next two people are ultimately right IMO, the CBDC will just like the EU eventually become something completely different from what they initially claimed it would/could/would😉: 🙋"I am fundamentally opposed to the introduction of the digital euro, it is just one more step in getting every citizen under more and more control. The EU is supposed to be about cooperation between all countries, but it is still about more dictatorship." 🙋‍♂️"I oppose this proposition. Even now it is possible to pay digitally in euros , so only addition to the system is to insert currency which is not connected with physical money - cash. Which leads to suspicion that it is beginning step in abolishing of currency in cash. In general I don't think there's any other reason for this step. So I'm strongly opposed to this proposition".

I didn't actually think of this before I started writing, but you know, it should theoretically be possible to expand control beyond anything we've ever seen before and disallow a CBDC to be converted for other currencies the issuer opposed, like oh let's say Bitcoin😳: "I am against a digital euro for the EU. My concern is that basic freedoms can also be endangered here and authoritarian governments [would] then have total control. The example of the Maastricht criteria shows that the previous governments do not follow the rules and with a digital euro the state could do what it wants with its citizens and suppress any opposition."

Some took it upon themselves to call for an exit of the EU and return their own country's currency while they had the chance😂 "Digital money for me and my family? NO NO NO NO! I am Slovakian and I want our own crown back! Only Slovaks should be able to make decisions on Slovakia! Out of the EU!"

The first Spanish reply I saw sarcastically translated to: "What was lacking of course was a fascist level of control over our money and end the few freedoms that we have left, the worst thing to have ever happened to us was the EU".

This was the reply that was most striking to me though and pretty much summarized what my thoughts were the moment I heard Brussels was toying with our money again: "Elites have failed, people no longer believe you want good for people. The digital euro could be a tool for progress and improvement, but in your hands it will only be a tool for further enslavement of the working class. I can already see you shutting down certain people's accounts without their permission and leaving them powerless to do anything. Introduce senseless taxes and then automatically withdraw it from digital accounts. No, no and no.....I strongly oppose the digital euro. Not that it matters, as you'll do what you want anyway, that part is already clear to me."

That's enough random comment reviewing, I think we've captured the overall mood quite well, large scale radical changes like these is what can make a society riddled with discontent and anger. Especially when some yokels then come along to tell us "hey, you don't like the EU then go move to .....". It's them who needs a quick history lesson and a reminder that we didn't opt to move to the EU, it conquered us. The feedback time has still not passed btw so the final numbers and percentages might change somewhat, if you'd like you can have your own say or read up on all the replies here.