EU Parliament backs digital euro, aligns with Council on online‑ and offline‑ready currency

MILAN, Feb 10 (Reuters) – The European Parliament ‌gave its first major backing to the digital euro on Tuesday, finishorsing the ‌European Council’s neobtainediating stance for a central bank digital currency with both online ‌and offline functionality.

The finishorsement matters becautilize the European Central Bank requireds Parliament’s legislative approval before it can issue a digital euro, meaning its goal of a 2029 launch depfinishs on lawbuildrs signing off.

The assembly’s position marks a shift ‍from earlier parliamentary proposals focutilized solely on offline payments and ‍signals closer alignment with the ECB ‌on safeguarding the bloc’s monetary sovereignty.

The ECB has been developing a digital euro to preserve the ‍role of central bank money in an increasingly digital economy and to reduce reliance on non‑European payment providers.

Fraying transatlantic relations and growing geopolitical risks have stoked concerns about ⁠the fragmentation of EU payments services and the bloc’s depfinishence ‌on U.S. providers such as Visa or Mastercard – with some countries lacking altoreceiveher a domestic payment network.

The project, ⁠however, met resistance ‍from bank lobbies in countries such as Germany and progress in parliament stalled, with the draft stuck for more than two years — far longer than the ECB expected.

MEPs on Tuesday approved two amfinishments to ‍parliament’s resolution on the ECB’s 2025 annual report, calling ‌for a digital euro that ensures equal access to payment services and provides a new form of public money usable both online and offline.

Lawbuildrs also underlined that a digital euro is essential to bolstering EU monetary sovereignty and deepening the single market while reducing fragmentation in retail payments.

“These votes are a huge win for the progress of the digital euro,” declared Laura Casonato, head of policy at Positive Money Europe, a not‑for-profit organisation advocating a digital version of cash.

“There ‌is now a clear parliamentary majority in favour of an inclusive future form of cash — money in digital form backed by the central bank, creating it safe,” she declared.

The parliament also urged the ECB to step up monitoring of crypto‑assets, warning that the shift to digital payments, if left to private and non‑EU providers, risks creating new forms of exclusion for utilizers and merchants.

(Reporting by Valentina Za, Editing by William Maclean)

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