Europe's stablecoin challenge may not be that MiCA is too demanding. The deeper problem is that its most important obligations remain unsettled at the point where stablecoins become economically useful.
That is why EBA Single Rulebook Q&A 2024_7078 deserves more attention than a routine legal query. On the surface, it is a technical question. Eurius, a Dutch law firm acting on behalf of Quantoz Payments, asked whether issuers of e-money tokens under MiCA must treat EMT holders as clients for anti-money laundering purposes on a continuing basis. The question is especially direct on secondary-market transfers: if a person acquires an EMT after issuance, does the issuer owe customer due diligence obligations to that holder as well? [1]
The question remains under review. The EBA page states that the answer will be prepared by the European Commission because the issue concerns interpretation of Union law. [1] That procedural detail is important. MiCA's rules for e-money tokens and asset-referenced tokens have applied since 30 June 2024. Yet one of the most practical questions for stablecoin design is still unanswered: must the issuer know every current holder of a token at all times?
This is not compliance housekeeping. It goes to the nature of a MiCA-compliant stablecoin.
A narrow interpretation would leave room for EMTs to operate as transferable digital money within a regulated framework. Issuers would carry obligations at issuance and redemption. CASPs, custodians, exchanges, payment firms, and other regulated intermediaries would carry obligations when they provide services. Responsibility would follow the actual control points in the system.
A broad interpretation would change the product. If issuers must identify and monitor every holder continuously, then secondary-market transfers become dependent on issuer visibility. Peer-to-peer transfers become legally uncertain or technically constrained. Wallet interoperability becomes harder to support. Stablecoins start to look less like open digital cash instruments and more like permissioned e-money systems wrapped in blockchain terminology.
That distinction matters for euro stablecoins. It also matters for dollar stablecoins operating in Europe under MiCA, including USDC. MiCA's e-money token category is not confined to euro-denominated instruments. An EMT is a crypto-asset that seeks to maintain a stable value by reference to one official currency. Article 48 sets the conditions for offering such tokens to the public or admitting them to trading in the Union, including the requirement that the issuer be authorized as a credit institution or electronic money institution. [2]
The EBA question therefore applies to EMTs as a category. It is most politically visible for euro stablecoins because they sit close to Europe's monetary and payments ambitions. But it is also relevant to MiCA-compliant dollar stablecoins. Circle announced in July 2024 that its French entity would issue both USDC and EURC in the EU under MiCA through an electronic money institution framework. [3]
The unresolved issue is larger than Quantoz, larger than euro tokens, and larger than one legal submission. It asks whether Europe can regulate stablecoins without removing the features that make them competitive.
What the EBA Q&A Actually Raises
The value of Q&A 2024_7078 is that it makes the operational problem explicit.
The submitter asks how far electronic money institutions that issue EMTs under MiCA must comply with AML and counter-terrorist financing obligations under Directive 2015/849, as amended by AMLD5. It then asks the key follow-up: should EMT holders be treated as clients of the issuing EMI, so that KYC requirements apply on an ongoing basis to all holders, including those who receive tokens through secondary-market trading? [1]
The background text explains why this is not an abstract legal concern. MiCA does not give a specific answer on how AML rules apply to EMT issuers in this context. If an issuer must continuously know the identity of the current holder, the submission notes that secondary-market tradability may be affected. It also warns that if customer due diligence must be conducted for every successive holder, and continuous monitoring must occur, the issuer may have to be involved in every transfer after initial issuance. [1]
That is the critical point. It describes a stablecoin market very different from the one that has developed globally.
Stablecoins became useful because they can circulate across venues, wallets, applications, and counterparties without the issuer approving every movement. Issuers control minting and redemption. Custodial intermediaries check their customers. Exchanges monitor activity on their platforms. Regulated payment firms apply their own controls. The token itself, however, can move.
The EBA question asks whether that model is compatible with Europe's AML expectations for EMT issuers.
The submission also identifies a second complication. The revised Transfer of Funds Regulation expanded the scope of AMLD5 by adding crypto-asset service providers as obliged entities. But EMTs can be distributed or transferred without a regulated CASP, including through peer-to-peer transactions or platforms outside MiCA's scope. The question therefore separates the position of the CASP from the position of the EMI or credit institution that issued the token. [1]
That separation matters. A CASP has a customer relationship when it provides custody, exchange, trading, transfer, or related crypto-asset services. An issuer has a customer relationship when it sells or redeems the token. After a secondary-market transfer, however, the issuer may not know who holds the token unless the system is designed to force that knowledge.
This is where legal interpretation becomes market architecture.
EMTs Are Not Only Euro Stablecoins
It would be too narrow to frame this as a euro-stablecoin issue alone.
Under MiCA, an e-money token references one official currency. That currency can be the euro, the U.S. dollar, sterling, the Swiss franc, or any other official currency. Article 48 governs the offer to the public or admission to trading of e-money tokens in the Union and requires the issuer to be authorized as a credit institution or electronic money institution, subject to the applicable conditions. [2]
The EBA Q&A is therefore relevant to euro stablecoins such as EURC, EURI, EURCV, and other euro-referenced EMTs. It is also relevant to dollar-denominated EMTs offered or traded in the EU under MiCA.
USDC is the clearest example. Circle announced that its French entity had become an EU electronic money institution and would issue both USDC and EURC in compliance with MiCA. [3] Circle's MiCA USDC white paper states that from July 2024 Circle SAS became a second, dual issuer of USDC, with USDC issued by Circle SAS fully fungible with USDC issued by Circle LLC. [4]
Stablecoin Beat's May 2026 market report examined how these MiCA-compliant stablecoins are positioned in the European market against their larger offshore counterparts.
That structure adds complexity. A dollar stablecoin can be globally fungible while also having an EU issuer and EU-specific legal arrangements for the European market. If the EU issuer must continuously know every current holder, including after secondary-market transfers, the practical burden becomes significant.
The point also shows the distinction between legal issuance and market circulation. A token can be issued under one legal framework, traded on another venue, withdrawn to self-custody, sent to a smart contract, moved back to an exchange, and later redeemed. Each stage may involve different actors, different jurisdictions, and different information flows. MiCA can regulate EU-facing issuers and EU CASPs. It cannot easily place the entire global circulation path under one issuer-controlled identity layer without redesigning the product itself.
The right framing is therefore broader than Europe's euro stablecoin ambitions. Europe is deciding what kind of single-currency stablecoins can operate inside its regulated market.
How EMT Issuance and Circulation Work
The ambiguity becomes clearer when the life of a stablecoin is separated into five stages: issuance, transfer, intermediation, peer-to-peer circulation, and redemption.
Issuance begins when a user or intermediary provides fiat funds to the issuer. For an EMT, the issuer must be authorized under MiCA as a credit institution or electronic money institution, unless a specific exemption applies. The issuer creates tokens representing a claim linked to one official currency. The token is then delivered to the purchaser or to an intermediary account.
At that point, the compliance relationship is relatively clear. The issuer has a customer. It receives funds. It issues a regulated digital instrument. It must comply with applicable AML obligations, governance requirements, safeguarding or reserve rules, disclosure duties, and redemption obligations.
Redemption is also relatively clear. A holder returns tokens to the issuer and asks for fiat money. The issuer removes the tokens from circulation and pays out the referenced currency, subject to the legal terms of redemption. Again, the issuer is dealing directly with a person or institution. Customer due diligence and sanctions screening fit naturally into that interaction.
The problem lies between issuance and redemption.
A token may circulate through a CASP. A regulated exchange may list it. A custodian may hold it for a customer. A payment firm may use it for merchant settlement. A broker may intermediate trades. In these cases, the CASP has its own obligations. The revised Transfer of Funds Regulation and MiCA framework bring CASPs into the compliance perimeter, including for certain information accompanying crypto-asset transfers. [1]
But tokens may also move outside regulated CASPs. A user can withdraw to a self-custody wallet. A business can receive tokens directly from a counterparty. A transfer can occur through a decentralized protocol. A non-EU exchange can intermediate activity outside MiCA's reach. Depending on technical design and issuer policy, a token can also be bridged, wrapped, or held in smart contracts.
This is the terrain on which the EBA question matters. Does the issuer's AML duty follow the token wherever it goes? Or does it attach to the issuer's own relationships, mainly minting and redemption, while CASPs and other intermediaries carry obligations for the services they provide?
The first model requires persistent issuer visibility. The second distributes responsibility across the ecosystem.
The Core Ambiguity: Who Is the Issuer's Client?
The legal and operational question can be put plainly: who is the issuer's client?
In conventional electronic money, the answer is usually contained. A customer opens an account or wallet with an electronic money institution. The institution issues e-money to that customer, maintains records, and processes transfers inside a system it can identify and control. The issuer typically owns or supervises the customer interface.
Stablecoins do not work that way by default. They can be bearer-like in practical operation, even if they are legally claims against an issuer. A token may leave its original distribution channel and circulate on public blockchains or third-party platforms. The issuer may remain responsible for redemption, but it may not maintain a direct relationship with every holder unless the system is built to require that relationship.
The EBA Q&A asks whether all holders should be treated as clients of the issuing EMI under AMLD5. [1] That word, "client," carries significant consequences. It can trigger customer due diligence, ongoing monitoring, recordkeeping, sanctions screening, and broader risk-management obligations.
If every current holder is the issuer's client, then the issuer needs systems to identify every holder. That implies some combination of whitelisted wallets, transfer restrictions, identity attestations, CASP-to-issuer reporting, blockchain analytics, smart-contract controls, and limits on transfers to unknown wallets.
Each option changes the market.
Whitelisting can support compliance, but it reduces openness. CASP-to-issuer reporting can improve visibility, but it creates major data-sharing burdens. Blockchain analytics can detect patterns, but it does not reliably identify beneficial owners in all cases. Transfer restrictions can prevent some illicit use, but they also reduce liquidity and composability. Mandatory identity attestations may create legal certainty for issuers while weakening user privacy and increasing operational friction.
A narrower model produces a different market. If direct issuance and redemption customers are the issuer's clients, the token can circulate with less friction. Regulated intermediaries still perform AML checks when they provide services. Issuers can monitor known risks, block addresses when legally required, and conduct due diligence at redemption. But they do not need to approve every transfer.
That model is closer to how global stablecoins function today. It is also more compatible with open network effects. Regulators may still dislike the possibility that unknown holders can possess and transfer regulated EMTs outside EU-supervised channels.
There is no risk-free answer. The policy choice is between different risks and different market structures.
Why Continuous Holder KYC Would Change the Product
A broad Commission interpretation would not remain inside compliance manuals. It would alter the commercial shape of MiCA-compliant stablecoins.
Secondary-market liquidity would be the first casualty. A stablecoin that cannot move between counterparties without issuer-level checks becomes less useful to traders, payment firms, market makers, and institutions that rely on speed and certainty. Liquidity is not just a function of reserve quality. It also depends on confidence that the instrument can move when needed. If every transfer requires identity validation or issuer involvement, liquidity is impaired by design.
Wallet interoperability would also suffer. Stablecoins grew because users could hold them in different wallets and move them across applications. If only approved wallets can receive or hold MiCA-compliant EMTs, wallet choice narrows. Large regulated custodians may benefit. Smaller wallet providers and self-custody tools would face higher barriers.
The burden would fall hardest on smaller issuers. Large banks, global exchanges, and major stablecoin firms can build extensive compliance architecture. Smaller European EMIs may not have the scale to manage continuous holder identification, real-time screening, data-sharing agreements, and technical transfer controls. A rule intended to create trust could end up concentrating the market in the hands of institutions already large enough to absorb the cost of surveillance infrastructure.
Europe's competitive position would also weaken. The United States has its own unresolved stablecoin issues, including reserve standards, federal versus state supervision, and illicit-finance controls. Offshore markets carry obvious weaknesses. But dollar stablecoins already benefit from deep liquidity, global distribution, and established network effects. If EU-compliant stablecoins carry more friction, European issuers will compete with a product that is safer on paper but less useful in practice.
The final consequence may be the most perverse: users could move into less compliant channels. Stablecoin demand does not disappear because compliant products become difficult to use. It migrates. Users can turn to offshore exchanges, self-custody wallets, decentralized protocols, non-compliant tokens, or foreign platforms outside effective EU supervision.
That outcome would damage the aims of regulation. Europe would maintain a cleaner regulated perimeter on paper while more activity takes place outside it.
The EBA submission acknowledges the underlying reality. EMT distribution can occur without regulated CASPs, including through peer-to-peer transactions or exchanges outside MiCA's scope. [1] The more restrictive the compliant product becomes, the more attractive those routes become.
The Tether Question
This is where Tether enters the analysis.
Tether has not pursued MiCA compliance for USDT in the way Circle has for USDC and EURC. ESMA and the European Commission have also made clear that CASPs should restrict services related to non-MiCA-compliant ARTs and EMTs. ESMA's January 2025 statement said national competent authorities should ensure CASP compliance regarding non-compliant ARTs and EMTs as soon as possible and no later than the end of the first quarter of 2025. [5]
From a regulatory standpoint, Tether's position has clear costs. Non-compliance limits access to regulated EU venues and weakens USDT's claim to institutional acceptability within Europe. MiCA-compliant issuers can point to stronger supervision, clearer redemption arrangements, consumer-protection safeguards, and a lawful route into the European market.
From a commercial standpoint, however, Tether's decision becomes easier to understand if MiCA implementation moves toward more restrictive and uncertain obligations.
If compliance requires authorization, reserve adaptation, disclosures, reporting, operational redesign, and possible issuer responsibility for every successive holder, a global stablecoin issuer faces a difficult calculation. It may decide that Europe's regulated market is not large enough to justify redesigning the product around continuous holder identification. Remaining dominant globally may be more attractive than becoming a constrained version of itself inside the EU.
That does not make Tether "right" in a normative sense. Regulatory credibility matters. Reserve transparency matters. Consumer protection matters. Large stablecoin issuers that want access to major regulated markets should expect serious obligations.
But Tether may have identified a structural risk correctly. MiCA compliance may not be a stable endpoint. It may be the beginning of a more permissioned model in which stablecoins lose the features that made them valuable.
European policymakers should take that risk seriously. If global liquidity stays outside Europe while compliant European stablecoins remain small, expensive, and operationally constrained, MiCA will not have delivered strategic leadership. It will have created a regulated niche.
The Surveillance Risk
Competitiveness is not the only concern. The surveillance issue may be even more important.
Continuous holder identification would create a powerful data layer around digital money. The debate often focuses on state surveillance, and rightly so. But the immediate architecture would also involve private surveillance.
If every EMT transfer depends on identity-linked compliance infrastructure, sensitive data would sit across a wide network of private actors: issuers, banks, EMIs, CASPs, custodians, wallet providers, compliance vendors, blockchain analytics firms, cloud providers, and outsourced monitoring systems. Each actor may hold part of the user's identity, transaction history, wallet graph, risk score, or behavioral profile.
This is not identical to traditional banking. Banks already hold extensive financial data, but that data is usually contained within account relationships. Stablecoin data can be more portable and more granular. Blockchain transactions are visible at address level. Once addresses are systematically linked to identity by regulated infrastructure, the result can be a persistent map of financial behavior across applications.
Supervisors may see appeal in that visibility. They should also recognize its costs.
The point is not that AML rules should be absent. They should not. Stablecoins can be used for fraud, sanctions evasion, illicit finance, and regulatory arbitrage. Issuers and intermediaries cannot ignore those risks. The question is where obligations should attach and how much visibility is necessary for the risk being addressed.
A proportionate model would apply full customer due diligence at issuance, redemption, and custodial or intermediated access points. It would impose obligations on CASPs when they provide regulated services. It would require issuers to maintain sound safeguarding arrangements, honor redemption, monitor known risks, comply with sanctions, and respond to lawful orders. It would also permit risk-based controls for suspicious activity.
A disproportionate model would treat every transfer as an identity event requiring issuer awareness or approval.
The second model turns stablecoins into permissioned financial infrastructure. It may satisfy a preference for comprehensive visibility, but it weakens privacy, interoperability, and market contestability. It also creates concentrated pools of sensitive data. Those pools become targets for cyberattacks, commercial exploitation, and institutional mission creep.
Europe should be careful not to confuse visibility with integrity. A financial system can be highly visible and still fragile. It can be compliant and still anti-competitive. It can be lawful and still intrusive.
Europe's Competitiveness Problem
MiCA was designed to give Europe legal clarity. In many respects, it has done that. It created a region-wide framework for crypto-assets, stablecoin issuance, CASP authorization, disclosures, governance, and supervision. Compared with fragmented national regimes or pure enforcement uncertainty, that is a meaningful achievement.
But legal clarity is not the same thing as competitiveness. A prior Stablecoin Beat analysis described how Europe's stablecoin policy is becoming a market access regime, gating who may enter the market as much as setting the standards they must meet.
European stablecoin issuers face a difficult landscape. Dollar stablecoins dominate global liquidity. U.S. issuers benefit from dollar network effects. Offshore issuers benefit from more flexible operating models. Large global platforms can route activity across jurisdictions. European issuers, particularly smaller EMIs, may face high authorization, compliance, safeguarding, disclosure, and operational costs before they achieve scale.
A broad answer to the EBA question would make that cost structure heavier.
The market consequences are predictable. Large incumbents would gain. Banks could manage compliance systems and restrict usage to known channels. Major CASPs could integrate identity, custody, and trading inside closed environments. Compliance vendors and analytics firms would become more central to the market. Smaller issuers and open wallet providers would struggle.
That does not automatically produce a safer market. It may simply produce a more concentrated one.
Stablecoin competitiveness depends on liquidity, trust, cost, distribution, and usability. Europe's regulatory model can strengthen trust. It can improve disclosure and redemption confidence. It can reduce some risks linked to opaque issuers. But if it damages usability, the market may not follow.
The economic stakes extend beyond crypto trading. Stablecoins are becoming part of global payment infrastructure. They are used for exchange settlement, remittances, cross-border payments, treasury operations, tokenized asset settlement, and emerging forms of automated commerce. If Europe cannot support competitive compliant stablecoins, it may become dependent on foreign digital money rails.
That dependence has strategic consequences. European businesses may continue settling through dollar stablecoins. European users may access digital dollars through non-EU platforms. European fintechs may build around foreign liquidity. European regulators may preserve formal authority over domestic issuers while losing influence over the systems people actually use.
A strict but uncompetitive framework is not sovereignty. It is a controlled loss of relevance.
The Case for Proportionate Regulation
The better answer is not deregulation. It is regulation tied to actual control points.
Issuers should be responsible for what only issuers can do. They control minting, redemption, safeguarding arrangements, disclosures, governance, contractual terms, and technical token policies. They should conduct due diligence on direct customers. They should screen redemption requests. They should comply with sanctions and lawful freezing orders. They should maintain high-quality safeguarding arrangements and publish reliable information about holder rights and risks.
CASPs should be responsible for the services they provide. If they custody EMTs, operate trading platforms, execute transfers, exchange crypto-assets for funds, or intermediate access, they should perform appropriate due diligence, monitoring, and reporting. The Transfer of Funds Regulation already reflects the policy choice to bring crypto-asset transfers into a travel-rule-style framework when CASPs are involved. [1]
Users should not automatically be forced into an issuer-controlled identity system merely because they hold or receive a token outside a direct issuer relationship. Peer-to-peer transfers and self-custody raise real risks, but those risks should be addressed through targeted tools rather than a blanket presumption that every holder is continuously a client of the issuer.
That approach preserves the regulated perimeter without eliminating open circulation.
Issuers can monitor blockchain activity on a risk basis without claiming perfect knowledge of every holder. CASPs can provide required information when they intermediate transfers. Redemption can operate as a strong control point because holders seeking fiat exit must identify themselves. High-risk wallets can be blocked or investigated when there is a legal basis. Technical standards can support compliance without requiring unnecessary disclosure of all transaction data.
Europe should also leave room for privacy-preserving compliance. Zero-knowledge proofs, selective disclosure, reusable credentials, and regulated identity attestations may eventually allow users to prove eligibility or sanctions status without exposing full transaction histories to every intermediary. These tools are not yet a universal solution. But policy should not lock the market into maximal data collection before better methods can mature.
The objective should be clear: protect financial integrity without turning digital money into continuous surveillance infrastructure.
What the Commission's Answer Will Signal
Because the EBA Q&A remains under review and the answer is assigned to the European Commission, the eventual response will matter beyond one issuer. [1]
A narrow answer would signal that MiCA-compliant EMTs can remain transferable instruments. Issuer obligations would focus on direct relationships, while CASP obligations would apply where regulated intermediation occurs. That would support liquidity, wallet interoperability, and market development while keeping AML controls at meaningful access points.
A broad answer would point toward a much more permissioned market. Issuers would need systems to identify current holders continuously or prevent unknown holders from emerging. That would favor closed-loop designs, approved wallets, and large compliance-heavy institutions. It would also make Europe's stablecoin market less attractive to global liquidity providers.
There is also a constructive middle path. The Commission could distinguish between legal holder rights and AML customer relationships. It could clarify that a redemption claim does not automatically make every secondary-market holder a client for ongoing customer due diligence until that holder interacts with the issuer. It could require issuers to maintain policies for indirect distribution and redemption risk without mandating continuous identity knowledge of all holders.
That would be the most workable outcome.
The Commission should avoid solving every risk by assigning every risk to the issuer. Stablecoin ecosystems are networks. Issuers matter, but they are not the entire system. CASPs, banks, custodians, wallets, merchants, payment processors, and users all play roles. A durable framework should allocate obligations according to control, knowledge, and actual service provision.
Otherwise, issuer liability becomes a way to force product design. The result may look clean to supervisors but weak as market infrastructure.
Europe's Larger Digital Money Choice
The EBA Q&A sits inside a broader European pattern. EU digital-finance policy often gives priority to ex ante control, supervisory visibility, and harmonized compliance. Those instincts are understandable. Europe has a large integrated market, strict consumer and data-protection traditions, and real concerns about financial crime, monetary sovereignty, and platform power.
Still, openness cannot be treated as a leftover benefit after every control objective has been satisfied. In payments, openness is often the condition that allows competition to emerge.
A stablecoin that can move across wallets, platforms, and applications has a different economic character from a token that can move only inside approved channels. The first can support innovation by firms that are not already banks or dominant platforms. The second reinforces incumbent control. The first lets users and businesses choose service providers. The second conditions access on gatekeepers. The first can reduce friction in cross-border settlement. The second risks recreating correspondent banking frictions in digital form.
Europe's leadership challenge is not that it regulates. Serious markets require rules. The challenge is whether regulation can distinguish risk control from market closure.
There is a real danger that policymakers mistake comprehensive data capture for sound governance. Digital money makes that danger more acute because design choices can be embedded in code, identity layers, compliance APIs, and transaction monitoring systems. Once such systems are built, they rarely become less intrusive.
A competitive European stablecoin framework should begin from four principles.
Redemption must be credible. Holders need a clear claim and a reliable path back to fiat money.
Intermediaries must be accountable. Regulated firms should know their own customers and monitor the services they provide.
Transfers should remain interoperable unless there is a specific legal or risk-based reason to restrict them.
Privacy should be a design objective, not an afterthought.
These principles are not anti-regulatory. They are pro-market and pro-resilience.
Conclusion: MiCA Will Be Judged by the Market It Creates
EBA Q&A 2024_7078 looks like a narrow legal question. It is not. It exposes one of the most consequential unresolved issues in European stablecoin policy.
If EMT issuers must treat every current holder as a client on an ongoing basis, including holders who acquire tokens through secondary-market transfers, MiCA-compliant stablecoins may become materially more restrictive than their global counterparts. They may be safer in a formal sense, but less liquid, less interoperable, less private, and less competitive.
If issuer obligations focus instead on issuance, redemption, and direct customer relationships, with CASPs responsible for regulated intermediation, Europe has a stronger chance of building a stablecoin market that is both compliant and useful.
This distinction applies to EMTs generally, not only euro-denominated tokens. It matters for euro stablecoins, where Europe's monetary and payments ambitions are most visible. It also matters for dollar stablecoins such as USDC when issued or offered under MiCA in the EU.
Tether's refusal to comply with MiCA should not be romanticized. Non-compliance carries real credibility and consumer-protection costs. But it should not be dismissed as simple regulatory evasion either. If Europe's framework keeps moving toward unclear and increasingly restrictive obligations, Tether's commercial caution will look less irrational.
The larger risk is that Europe creates a stablecoin regime that satisfies supervisory instincts but fails the market test. Users may not abandon stablecoins. They may simply use non-compliant ones. Businesses may not wait for European liquidity. They may continue to settle in dollar tokens. Innovators may not build inside a permissioned framework. They may build elsewhere.
Europe's stablecoin policy will be judged not only by MiCA's legal architecture, but by the infrastructure it makes possible. The objective should be regulated digital money that is redeemable, transparent, and safe. It should also be open, competitive, and privacy-conscious.
A stablecoin regime that turns every transfer into a permissioned identity event would not be a European advantage. It would be evidence that the continent has mistaken control for competitiveness.