be able to shed some light on the project. beyond purely technical considerations, a retail cbdc could play an anchor role in the digital world, similar to the role played by banknotes in the physical world, iv and hence preserve the accessibility and usability of central bank money. regarding the euro area, a digital euro would also contribute to supporting monetary sovereignty and strategic autonomy, by preventing the use of external digital assets – such as private crypto assets and non - euro cbdcs – as settlement assets, and by facilitating the emergence of a pan - european payment solution at the point of sale, which could serve as a vehicle for the use of a digital euro. but such a digital euro could and should be decentralised in its implementation, in the spirit of public / private partnerships mentioned earlier. on the other side of a mountain, you will obviously always find a side that is less exposed to the sun ; here, this northern face is wholesale cbdc. it currently attracts little public interest, although it poses relatively less complex legal issues, and has two strong business cases. first, a wholesale cbdc could significantly contribute to improving cross - border and cross - currency payments, a topic on which we have made progress over the past year. following a first report delivered to the g20 in july 2021, the future of payments working group of the bis has recently finalised a new report outlining options for access and interoperability of cbdcs for cross - border payments. second, a wholesale cbdc could accompany the tokenisation of securities as a safe and liquid settlement asset for them on a blockchain technology. failing to offer market participants a wholesale cbdc could open the door to an extensive use of socalled stablecoins, which would pose a systemic risk. over the past two years, the banque de france has therefore been looking into a wholesale cbdc with a view to contribute to eurosystem ’ s efforts in designing and developing it when the time comes. and this time could come sooner than expected, with the upcoming entry into application of the european pilot regime page 5 sur 5 in early 2023 - only six months from now. this new regulation provides a framework for market players to experiment the use of blockchain in real - life conditions to issue and trade tokenised securities. it also offers a unique opportunity for the eurosystem to conduct its own “ pilot regime ”, in close cooperation with private players. without overpromising on that pilot wholesale

##anciere 138, 41 ‐ 54. doi : 10. 3917 / ecofi. 138. 0041. oecd ( 2021 ). biodiversity, natural capital and the economy. a policy guide for finance, economic and environment ministers. accessible at : https : / / www. oecd. org / environment / biodiversity ‐ natural ‐ capital ‐ and ‐ the ‐ economy ‐ 1a1ae114 ‐ en. htm dnb ( 2020 ). indebted to nature – exploring biodiversity risks for the dutch financial sector. see : https : / / www. ngfs. net / en / communique ‐ de ‐ presse / ngfs ‐ and ‐ inspire ‐ launch ‐ joint ‐ research ‐ project ‐ biodiversity ‐ and ‐ financial ‐ stability that are less exposed to environmental risks and mobilising the financial sector. “ no action ” is not an option. they also have to take into account the impact that these structural changes will have on price stability. energy and food prices, for example, can be heavily impacted by climate change and biodiversity loss, both inland and in coastal regions. should we choose a holistic or a sequential approach? some challenge the order of priorities, by arguing that climate change is already complex enough. they do not want to include biodiversity or health issues, as they fear that this will be seen as mission creep or that it would overload their staff. these serious concerns are understandable. nevertheless, as we just stressed, connections exist between climate change / loss of biodiversity and health, which can encourage synergies. furthermore, the pandemic has created a sense of urgency on health ‐ related risks. larry summers recently stated : “ the central banking community has to date been roughly 50 to 100 times more focused on issues of climate finance than of issues of pandemic finance and on readiness to deal with the next pandemic when it comes ” ( session at the atlanta fed, 18 may 2021 ) the scientific community is telling us that potential emergence of new pandemics and climate change have a common cause : the massive and unprecedented degradation of natural habitats by human activities. 14 that is the reason why, in my opinion, all these issues are not different chapters of a book we could read one after the other, but alerts popping up simultaneously on our screens, which we have to acknowledge through a holistic analytical framework. the green swan sums up well the dilemma for central banks : they cannot ignore the issue and they have