Summary
- As the EU’s newest member, Croatia has had limited opportunity to influence crypto/digital assets’ policy, but this has not stopped two of its MEPs from having an impact in the areas of access to better information, health data and digital assets and the single market.
- Cyprus has just six MEPs, and in terms of digital assets, has not played an active role in shaping policy.
- Conversely, Czech MEPs are highly active, with several politicians enjoying prominent roles in the digital asset policy space.
Croatia’s influence on crypto policy is growing
Croatia is the most recent member state to join the EU in its seventh enlargement in 2013. Its current 12 MEPs are concentrated in the two largest parties, with four Croatian EPP MEPs and four Croatian S&D MEPs. The country has no MEPs in significant positions within the EP political hierarchy and no full members of the Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) committee, the lead committee when it comes to crypto/digital assets policy.
Although this suggests Croatia has limited influence on any digital assets or crypto discussions and policy development, two individuals have risen to prominence.
Tomislav Sokol (EPP), vice-chair of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), was rapporteur on two horizontal digital files: an own-initiative report, adopted in April 2023 on eGovernment accelerating digital public services that support the functioning of the single market (summary here) and a legislative report in December 2023 on European Health Data Space.
Additionally, Biljana Borzan (S&D), was rapporteur for IMCO on better protection against unfair practices and better information.
In terms of the latest polling, EPP-affiliated Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica and S&D-affiliated Socijaldemokratska Partija Hrvatske are consistently around the 30-33% and 18-20% respectively since the last general election in 2020. If this accurately represents June’s results, the make-up of the Croatian delegations in the EP could well be similar to the outgoing EP.
An element to watch will be the potential success of three relatively new parties/coalitions/movements: the homeland movement; Možemo! and Bridge of Independent Lists, none of whom are currently affiliated with EP parties and all of whom are polling at approximately 10%.
Cyprus plays little role in EU crypto
Cyprus is the third-smallest Member State of the EU (only Malta and Luxembourg are smaller) representing just 0.2% of the EU’s total population. As such, it has only six MEPs.
In terms of the breakdown of Cypriot MEPs in the outgoing parliament, the center of gravity politically is tilted to the left. There are no populist or far right Cypriot MEPs, perhaps reflecting the pro-EU stance of an island all too used to military conflict as well as political divisions.
From a crypto policy perspective, none of the Cypriot MEPs have played an active part in policy during this legislature. Costas Mavrides (S&D) is a full member of the ECON committee and as such, voted on crypto legislation at committee level. However, his own ECON work has focussed more on macroeconomic and monetary policy issues, including work on the EU’s COVID financial response – the recovery and resolution facility. Eleni Stavrou (EPP) is a substitute member of ECON.
In terms of the most recent Cypriot domestic elections (2021) EPP-affiliated Democratic Rally and the Group of the United Left (GUE)-affiliated progressive party of working people largely dominated with 28% and 22% respectively – i.e. 50% of Cypriot voters voted for these parties. Despite a late poll bounce in 2020, the S&D-affiliated Democratic Party finished third with 11%. Were these results to materialize in June, there may well be an increase for the EPP (up to three MEPs from two) and a reduction for the S&D (down from two to one).
Czech Republic plays prominent crypto role
Similar to Belgium, Czechia’s MEPs are spread evenly throughout the political spectrum, with the biggest delegations (five MEPs each) from parties affiliated to the EPP and Renew (liberal) parties.
There are several notable Czech MEPs who have enjoyed prominent EP roles involving work on digital assets.
Ondřej Kovařík (Renew) was elected in 2019 and quickly became one of the most active, full members of the Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) committee. He penned a 2020 report with recommendations to the Commission on Digital Finance, which fed into the European Commission’s on-going reflection on a strategic plan for fintech and crypto. He was an active shadow rapporteur on both the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation and the Transfer of Funds Regulation (TFR) – the seminal pieces of EU legislation regulating crypto activities and implementing the travel rule into EU law respectively. More recently, he has focussed on payments regulation, acting as rapporteur on the PSD3 and shadow on the Payment Services Regulation and access to financial data (FIDA) files.
Luděk Niedermayer (EPP) was elected in 2015 and has been a member of ECON since, currently acting as one of its vice-chairs. A specialist in tax policy, he has played a key role steering the negotiations on revising the EU’s AML provisions in his capacity as rapporteur for the latest iteration of the AML/CTF legislation.
Dita Charanzová (Renew) was also elected in 2015. She is one of the vice-presidents of the EP, and as such, also a member of the European Parliament’s Bureau, the body that lays down its rules. As VP, she is in charge of cybersecurity, including in relation to the integrity of European elections, and is also vice-chair of an internal parliamentary working group on ICT Innovation Strategy.
Regarding the current polls, Centrist Czechia party, ANO (Renew-affiliated), has a comfortable lead, with approximately one-third of voting intentions. However, this is unlikely to translate beyond its current five seats, suggesting that Czechia MEPs in the upcoming EP could well be spread similarly to the outgoing one.
