The ECB official claims that with the digital euro merchants will start to push towards the no-fee option.

> "The merchant will probably say to the customer: ‘please pay by digital euro, or else you pay an extra fee’. Instead of handing over so much money to Mastercard or Visa, they will have the option of our not-for-profit payment engine.”

But it's the EU who with the Payment Systems Directives bans merchants from passing the fees to customers. Annoying how this isn't even mentioned. Public officials should treat us as citizens of a democratic system, not subjects of techocratic bureaucracy to be managed with PR campaigns.

That said, payment system as public service is kinda a no-brainer. Due to the lobbyist capture of EU I don't have too high hopes though.