EU Parliament Rep Seeks €1 Million for Blockchain Research

A member of the European Parliament is proposing that €1m ($1.1m) be spent on a task force that would focus on studying digital currencies and blockchain technology.

The push for funding comes months after the legislative arm of the European Union (EU) first approved the task force, proposed by MEP Jakob von Weizsäcker earlier this year.

Legislative records

indicate that von Weisäcker is now asking for financial support for the measure. In notes, he said that support should be approved in order to position the European Commission – the economic bloc's executive branch – at the forefront of an emerging technology.

The MEP wrote:

"This pilot project aims at creating a Task Force, staffed with regulatory and technical experts, in order to build up technical expertise, regulators capacity and develop use cases, especially for governmental applications, in the field of distributed ledger technology (DLT) as proposed in the Resolution of the European Parliament on virtual currencies."

The task force initiative is one of the more notable legislative efforts to emerge from Europe on the subject of blockchain, as it is expected to focus on the developing government use cases.

In legislative records, von Weisäcker reiterated past statements about the task force's potential role in creating a balanced regulatory environment.

"Too early hard regulatory measures would stifle innovation and hamper its potential," he wrote. "Waiting too long might lead to a materialization of (systemic) risks."

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