Chair of EU Parliament’s Committee on Budgets Calls for Crypto Ban Amid Banking Turmoil – Johan Van Overtveldt, a member of the European Parliament, has advocated that governments should restrict cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. His call comes in the midst of a crisis caused by the demise of multiple banking institutions, including two U.S.-based crypto-friendly banks.
“Another lesson to be learned from the current banking commotion. Enforce a strict ban on cryptocurrencies,” the lawmaker, who has previously praised blockchain technology, tweeted on Friday. “Speculative poison and no economic or social added value. If a government bans drugs, it should also ban cryptos,” he argued.
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Van Overtveldt is a journalist and politician from the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) party in Belgium. He served as minister of finance in the administration of Prime Minister Charles Michel from 2014 to 2018. 2019 saw his election to the European Parliament, where he chairs the Committee on Budgets and represents the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) on the Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON).
ECR is a soft Eurosceptic, anti-federalist political group in the EU’s legislature. Free enterprise, minimal regulation, lower taxation, along with “small government as the ultimate catalysts for individual freedom and personal and national prosperity” are among its founding principles.
Overtveldt’s statement regarding cryptocurrencies followed the failure of three U.S. banks, of which two, Silvergate Bank and Silicon Valley Bank, were involved in the crypto industry. Credit Suisse, a significant investment bank on the Old Continent, was adversely affected by these failures, which reached Europe.
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Europe has yet to comprehensively regulate its crypto sector by implementing the Markets in Crypto Assets legislative package (MiCA). This summer, EU institutions and member states reached an agreement on the idea. It establishes regulations for crypto service providers across the the 27-strong bloc.
