The differences of opinion between the European Parliament’s rapporteur on the ‘digital euro’ legislative package, Fernando Navarrete Rojas (EPP, Spanish), and the representatives of the pro-European political groups do not seem to have narrowed, based on the debate – described as “fascinating and passionate” by Aurore Lalucq (S&D, French) – held by the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) on the 1,414 amendments tabled on the draft report (see EUROPE 13747/21).
Assuring that he wanted to reach “a compromise”, Mr Navarrete Rojas said that while MEPs generally supported the objective of reducing Europe’s dependence on non-EU providers such as Visa and Mastercard, there were differing views on the solution. He maintained his position in favour of seeking solutions from the private sector, with the ECB’s role in managing a digital euro potentially being offline.
“Private solutions (...) are a key pillar of Europe’s payment resilience”, stressed Mr Navarrete Rojas, refusing to believe that the notion of strategic autonomy necessarily implies “a public solution”. He also warned that: “It would be unrealistic, and ultimately counterproductive, to expect the digital euro to be the miracle solution to all Europe’s strategic vulnerabilities in the area of payments. This would place an excessive burden on a single instrument and expose it to risks that it is not designed to absorb”.
On behalf of the S&D group, Greece’s Nikos Papandreou criticised the “unconstructive” attitude of debating, for over a year, models that contradict European case law on the legal tender status of the euro. In his view, the future digital central bank currency “requires operational control and democratic accountability and ownership of essential infrastructure”, and “the private sector does not offer these guarantees” necessary to establish “European sovereignty”.
For Gilles Boyer (Renew Europe, French), the digital euro must “preserve the role of public money in a digital world”. He noted that the players in the payments sector now want to work with the European legislator on the best way to implement the digital euro, based on existing “standards” and ensuring the “interoperability” of systems. “We cannot wait for private solutions for ever, the reason why we need to act right now. It can cost money but if we fail the alternative can be much worse!”, warned his Slovakian counterpart, Ľudovít Ódor.
Damian Boeselager (Greens/EFA, German) advocated “simplicity” to reduce costs and the risk of failure. Banks should only provide the option of online payment in digital euros, without having to build their own application. In favour of “a public project”, Gaetano Pedullà (The Left, Italian) argued in favour of no commission for small expenditure and the introduction of a “free” payment card so as not to have to pay in digital euros only using a mobile phone.
The far right of the political spectrum continues to reject the principle of a digital euro. Auke Zijlstra (PfE, Dutch) spoke of the ECB’s lack of experience and the problems of transparency regarding the costs of the project, which will ultimately be charged to taxpayers. “Many private initiatives will be sabotaged”, he said. As for Siegbert Droese (ESN, German), he declared that the digital euro is “the end of freedom”.
According to Luděk Niedermayer (EPP, Czech), the question is, ultimately, “are we happy with that in the current geopolitical circumstances?”. “Either we join the Council and we allow it to happen as soon as possible or we delay it and in this case we should take responsibility”, he added, speaking out against procrastination.
Bringing the discussions to a close, Mr Navarrete Rojas nevertheless saw several points of convergence: not calling into question the legal tender status of the euro, the simplicity of the system and the minimisation of costs, the importance of interoperability, the refusal to choose specific technological support (‘device-agnostic’) and the non-programmable nature of the digital euro.
The vote on the draft report in the ECON Committee is scheduled for Tuesday 5 May, with Ms Lalucq hoping for an early vote. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)