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This audio production is intended to bring new technologies that impact our lives, like digital assets, central bank digital currencies and artificial intelligence in an easy to understand way to a larger audience.

This episode highlights the tension between the ECB's vision for a comprehensive retail CBDC and concerns from experts regarding its practical implementation, inherent risks, and potential for unintended consequences. While strategic autonomy and modernising payment systems are legitimate goals, a strong argument is made for a more measured, collaborative approach that prioritises private sector innovation, targeted public interventions (such as a wholesale CBDCs), and robust democratic oversight, rather than a broad-based retail CBDC with the currently hardly acceptable shortcomings that may introduce significant financial, privacy, and governance challenges.