At the close of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council on Friday 12 December, the Danish Presidency of the Council of the European Union welcomed the progress made on the single currency package, which includes the draft rules on the digital euro, in line with the call made last October by the Heads of State or Government of the euro area countries to speed up legislative work (see EUROPE 13738/9). A negotiating mandate from the EU Member States is expected in the next few days.
“I’m happy to report that we expect Council agreement on the digital euro as a major result during the Danish presidency. We took stock today of the presidency solution and we expect finalisation of the technical work next week”, said Denmark’s Minister for Economic Affairs, Stephanie Lose, at a press conference.
“We are nearly there”, Ms Lose assured her European counterparts on Friday morning, after the launch of a written procedure on the package as a whole. The aim is to enable the EU Council’s negotiating mandate to be formally adopted by the Member States’ ambassadors to the EU (Coreper).
“There are still two outstanding issues for us”, stressed the French Minister for the Economy. Roland Lescure raised the technical issue of interoperability with other private sector systems. “It is important that this continues and that the services of the European Central Bank (ECB) can work with the banks to ensure a healthy coexistence between the digital euro and private sector services”, he said.
The Minister also felt that particular attention needed to be paid to communicating with the public. “We need to reassure our citizens that cash will continue to exist and that the digital euro will be an additional option”, he added.
The European Commissioner for Economy, Valdis Dombrovskis, welcomed the progress made, saying that the EU Council’s position offered a balanced basis for future negotiations with the European Parliament.
ECB Vice-President Luis de Guindos, for his part, welcomed the “strong political signal”, pointing out that the final decision to issue the digital euro can only be taken once the legislative framework has been adopted, paving the way for it to be made available to the public by 2029. (Original version in French by Bernard Denuit)