Euro digitale e corso legale della moneta

The interpretation of Art. 1277 of the Italian Civil Code – if related to means of payment other than cash and virtual currencies, and to gen-eral monetary obligations – can only arise from the future history of our currency. It is already laid out in the proposal of a European regulation of 28 June 2023 concerning, on the one hand, the introduction of a digital euro issued by the European Central Bank and, on the other hand, the declared aim of thereby guaranteeing that cash continue to be present, available, and accepted by all residents of and companies in the Eurozone, thus clarifying the extent and sense of the legal tender of Euro banknotes and coins. The proposal was followed by the Decision taken by the European Central Bank on 18 October 2023 to launch a preparatory phase for the issue of a digital Euro. This is the scenario we are now facing: on the one hand, designed to launch a digital Euro and, on the other hand, to assure that the notion of “legal tender” of Euro banknotes and coins be interpreted homogeneously across the Countries of the Eurozone. After all, monetary obligations remain the most widely used system and therefore always require a framework of stable and definite principles.