MEP Stefan Berger: ‘Yes, we need regulations, but you still have to leave room to breathe’
The European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs recently approved a draft of its comprehensive Markets in Crypto Assets, or MiCA, crypto regulation package. The new framework covers a wide range of crypto-related subjects, such as the status of all major currencies and stablecoins and the regulation of crypto mining and exchange platforms.
Stefan Berger, a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), is the Parliament’s rapporteur for the upcoming MiCA regulation — the person appointed to report on proceedings related to the bill. In the associated negotiations, the German politician vehemently opposed, among other things, a ban on proof-of-work (PoW)-based assets such as Bitcoin (BTC). Cointelegraph auf Deutsch spoke with Berger about the controversies surrounding the MiCA framework and his opinion on the new Transfer of Funds Regulation, also known as TFR.
The European Commission’s first proposal to introduce MiCA in September 2020 came at the right time, said Berger. “We are at the threshold of this technological development, and the regulation has taken up several points that urgently need to be regulated,” he said. MiCA was designed to be “a purely forward-looking financial market regulation” that was to “be kept technologically neutral.”
There was initial agreement on MiCA’s key points in the Parliament, but shortly before the vote, the Left, Greens and Social Democrats suddenly took issue with the regulation on environmental grounds. The discussion revolved around sustainability, said Berger, and whether the European Union should ban consensus mechanisms such as PoW that apparently do not meet certain sustainability criteria.
In the end, Berger introduced his own solution: linking crypto
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