Euro zone finance ministers have expressed concerns that the new US administration's shift in policy to support cryptocurrencies could impact the euro zone's control over its own currency and financial stability, top officials said on Monday.

In an executive order last week, US President Donald Trump—who during his campaign pledged to be a "crypto president"—signed a directive to create a strategic cryptocurrency reserve using government-owned tokens, overturning previous administration policy. "Policy developments in other jurisdictions can have important consequences for us here in Europe," Paschal Donohoe, the ministers' chairman, stated at a press conference following the ministers' discussion of developments in the US cryptocurrency market. 

He stated that "these discussions are fundamentally linked to our own autonomy and to the resilience of our currency," and that the European Central Bank's development of a digital euro was now essential to staying ahead of the curve. The European Central Bank (ECB) started working on developing a digital euro in 2020. This decision came after Facebook announced its plan to introduce a digital currency called Libra in 2019. Facebook's plan raised concerns among regulators in both the United States and Europe. Later, the Libra project was renamed Diem but eventually came to an end in early 2022. Pierre Gramegna, the head of the European Stability Mechanism (the euro zone's bailout fund), mentioned that the US's growing acceptance of cryptocurrencies could encourage major tech companies to launch their own payment systems again. 

"(The) discussion ... highlighted that what is at stake here is also European sovereignty," Gramegna said. "The US administration's stance on this compared to the past has changed: the US administration is favourable towards cryptocurrencies and especially dollar-denominated stablecoins, which may raise certain concerns in Europe that it could reignite foreign and US tech giants' plans to launch mass payment solutions based on dollar-denominated stablecoins," he stated, referring to digital assets pegged to the greenback. "If this were to be successful, it could affect the euro area's monetary sovereignty and financial stability," he added.