European Parliament Reps File Motion For Regulating Bitcoin Transactions

According to a motion for a European Parliament resolution filed last month, three representatives from a French right-wing political party– Dominique Bilde, Sophie Montel and Florian Philippot – are seeking to give member-states the power to “control” virtual currencies such as bitcoin or even to ban them altogether.

The motion was filed on 25th November, according to a copy of the motion published on the European Parliament website, CoinDesk reported.

The motion calls on the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, to “allow Member States to exercise stricter controls over all virtual currency exchange transactions and even to prohibit them”.

The document also draws attention to the recent ruling by the European Court of Justice that transactions involving the exchange of the virtual currency ‘bitcoin’ for traditional currencies should be exempted from VAT.

It cited the decision by Russia to make to make some transactions involving virtual currencies a criminal offence, owing to the high risk of their being used for illegal purposes.

Comparing the bitcoin system to a Ponzi scheme, the filing says that there is a “high level of risk” in the bitcoin system chiefly due to the anonymity feature, irreversibility of transactions, and it favours the first purchasers unduly thereby creating gross inequalities.

The calls for regulating the cryptocurrency ecosystem have heightened recently following the terrorist attacks in Paris. Ahead of a UN Security Council meeting on terrorist financing and the Islamic State, French Finance Minister Michel Sapin told reporters last week that he would push for greater oversight of bitcoin transactions.

"Carrying bundles of cash in bags is no longer used. Terrorists have a capacity to use all the new technologies to transfer money around so we need together have identical rules in countries," Reuters quoted Sapin said.