No forced CBDC lock-in
As long as the law protects choice, a CBDC cannot be the only way to receive money from the government.
← Back to OPAP
Monetary autonomy without reinventing money
The political option
OPAP does not give us autonomy over the euro itself. It can give us something both simpler and immediately useful: autonomy over how we receive money. A narrow piece of legislation can separate our permanent payment identity from banks, wallets, and payment networks.
No new rules required
Banks can support OPAP today
Banks and payment providers can support OPAP under existing rules. OPAP only adds a transparent technical lookup: it resolves an OPID to the name and IBAN used for a normal payment. It does not hold money or bypass regulation. Existing security, identity, and compliance checks remain in place.
Legislation is not needed to permit OPAP. It can make OPAP a right.
Read the source-traced EU regulatory review →A simple legal mechanism
What would legislation add?
The government would recognise an OPID as a valid payment instruction. It would not create a new currency, operate a payment network, or ask OPAP to hold money.
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Every person and organisation may register an OPID of their own.
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Public bodies must accept a supplied OPID and retrieve its current payment instructions whenever they make a payment.
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The payment then travels through an allowed bank, wallet, CBDC, or other payment route selected behind that address.
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Identity checks, confirmation of payee, sanctions rules, and every other applicable legal control continue to apply.
Practical freedom
What autonomy would this create?
The public payment relationship stays fixed while the infrastructure behind it remains open to change.
No mandatory bank
The government pays to the OPID instead of exclusively to an account at a prescribed bank.
Easy switching
The recipient can change bank, wallet, or payment network behind the same OPID.
Less effective debanking
A bank can close an account, but not confiscate the OPID. Its owner can publish a new lawful payment route.
Several routes at once
One OPID can offer multiple independent ways to receive money and keep them available side by side.
More competition
Banks and wallets compete to provide the service without becoming the owner of the payment address.
Future-proof and independently controlled
New payment methods can be added without changing government records or established payment relationships. There is no central OPAP administrator: whoever controls the domain controls the payment address.
The essential safeguards
What must the law guarantee?
- The right to supply an OPID as a payment instruction to the government.
- Support for multiple lawful payment routes.
- A ban on unnecessary preference for one bank, network, or CBDC.
- A stable, public OPAP standard and auditable processing.
- An accessible alternative for people without their own domain or digital access.
- Evidence records so every payment remains auditable afterwards.
Honest limits, real leverage
Technology cannot make political freedom irreversible.
OPAP cannot make debanking or a future CBDC mandate legally impossible. National or European legislation can always be changed later. It does make exclusive dependence technically unnecessary—and therefore much harder to justify in law.
No single bank, government, or payment infrastructure needs to decide how someone receives money.