The Member States of the European Union are unlikely to adopt a formal common position on the digital euro before 2026, according to a high-ranking European source on Tuesday 9 December. However, “negotiations have been going very well”, the source declared.
“Member States are very close to having solved the political issues”, said this source, indicating that all that remained was some “cleaning-up” of the legislative text. “The EU Council’s formal position will probably be approved next year”, the source added.
However, Copenhagen still hopes to conclude work on this file before handing over the reins of the EU Council Presidency to Cyprus. The European finance ministers will meet in Brussels on Friday 12 December for a policy debate with a view to adopting the EU Council’s position on the ‘single currency’ package, which includes a proposal for a regulatory framework for the issue of a future digital euro.
A decision on the holding limit for the future digital euro is not expected to be part of a hoped-for agreement at the EU Council. At the end of September, the Eurogroup approved a decision-making procedure for deciding on the launch of the digital euro and setting the minimum and maximum limits for the digital euro portfolio (see EUROPE 13713/7).
The EU’s strategic autonomy is at stake, warn Piero Cipollone and Valdis Dombrovskis. “We lack a European digital solution - accepted for any digital payments throughout the euro area - that can fill the gap left by declining cash use”, stressed the Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB), Piero Cipollone, and the European Commissioner for the Economy, Productivity and Simplification, Valdis Dombrovskis, in an advocacy document published on Tuesday.
At a time when the EU is the subject of a series of verbal attacks by US leaders (see EUROPE 13768/14), Mr Cipollone and Mr Dombrovskis reiterated the need for the Union to act to “reduce the external dependencies that might hinder our freedom to pursue policies in line with our own values and interests”.
“Today, our payments landscape is dominated by non-European providers. (...) This makes us dependent on foreign-owned companies in an increasingly polarised and fragmented world. Ceding such a degree of technological control over the EU’s economy to others deeply impedes Europe’s ability to act autonomously on the world stage”, said the two leaders.
Describing 2026 as a “crucial” year for the project, Mr Cipollone and Mr Dombrovskis also reaffirmed that the aim was to complement cash, not to replace it. They also pointed out that the ECB was working in parallel on the design of the next generation of euro banknotes.
Link to the advocacy document: https://aeur.eu/f/jwv (Original version in French by Bernard Denuit)