Europeans want cryptocurrencies to be regulated by their governments

Most Europeans want cryptocurrencies to be regulated by their own governments. More and more people would also support the creation of national digital currencies in order to ensure some monetary independence from the European Union (EU). This emerges from a survey conducted for euronews.com by Redfield & Wilton Strategies. The survey, conducted from 4 to 10 August, reflects the views of around 31,000 respondents in 12 EU Member States - Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Spain. The results come at a time when the European Commission is beginning to consider new legislation to create a new pan-European regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies. The survey also showed that in the case of cryptomas, lack of knowledge is the main reason why people avoid buying them. A significant proportion of citizens in Greece (61%), Germany (34%) and Latvia (31%) believe that the EU and the European Central Bank (ECB) are interfering too much in their country's economy. According to Dimitar Lilkov, a researcher at the Center for European Studies, the remnants of the crisis more than a decade ago "can still be felt in countries like Greece and Italy." The majority of the local population is still convinced that the crisis occurred due to bad decisions at EU level, and not due to serious shortcomings in their banking sector, a sharp rise in public debt and an unreformed labor market. On the other hand, respondents in Lithuania (41%), Spain (39%), Portugal (36%) and Estonia (36%) stated that the ECB intervenes "to the right extent". On the question of who should be responsible for financial regulation, most respondents (from 49 percent in Hungary to 76 percent in the Netherlands) believe that it should be the responsibility of their national government, not the European Union.