The III International Congress "Nuevos Retos del Derecho Societario y Financiero en materia de digitalización, toquenización y sostenibilidad" was held on 9, 10 and 11 September 2026 at the Paraninfo of the Universidad de Zaragoza. The Congress was directed by Reyes Palá Laguna and Pedro-José Bueso Guillén, coordinated by Blanca Leach Ros and Anunciación Pérez Pueyo, and organised within the research project PID2022-137502NB-I00 with the support of the IEDIS institute and the LegMiBIO research group.
BABEL was represented in the closing session of 11 September, "Digitalización y mercados financieros", moderated by Jaime Martí Miravalls (Universidad de Valencia) and structured as a dialogue among the speakers, alongside Juan Bataller Grau (Universidad de Valencia), Emilio Díaz Ruiz and Alberto Tapia Hermida (UCM).
Filippo Zatti addressed the wholesale dimension of the digital euro, which remains less discussed than its retail counterpart. Starting from the Eurosystem's Pontes infrastructure — operational this month on TARGET2 and to be followed by Appia in 2028 — he observed that the connection between DLT platforms and central bank money is being built without any amendment to the legal framework, and that the entire construction rests on a definitional choice: the Pontes cash token is defined not as money but as a proxy for central bank money, a claim against the provider to transfer the corresponding amount in TARGET2. Tokenisation thus separates the vehicle from the monetary function, which scriptural money keeps together. From this follows the nature of access to Pontes, which is an access policy determined by the European Central Bank rather than a right, and the three issues he submitted to the legislator's attention: the publication of transparent admission criteria, proportionality in the conditions of participation, and a declared time horizon for operators admitted today.
Rosa Giovanna Barresi examined the retail dimension, focusing on the reverse waterfall mechanism and the moment of settlement finality, on the allocation of liability to payment service providers for events beyond their control, and on the unresolved balance between anti-money-laundering obligations and the protection of users' privacy.
The Congress was closed by Juan Sánchez-Calero Guilarte (UCM). A plaque in the Aula Magna recalls that Albert Einstein delivered his lectures on relativity and the structure of space there in March 1923.