Digital Euro: Europe’s strategic and economic imperative 

The debate around the digital euro is often confined to the realm of payment innovation, treated as just another tool alongside cards and apps. 

In reality, it goes far deeper, touching the very foundations of Europe’s economic autonomy, and therefore its political independence.

In just a few years, citizen habits have changed dramatically. Cash, long the mainstay of daily transactions, has been replaced by electronic solutions. The shift has been rapid—perhaps too rapid—and therefore hard for many to grasp, but packed with consequences. Every digital payment relies on an infrastructure, a network, and a set of rules. 

Today, a significant portion of those networks is not under European control.

Concentrating payments through international circuits exposes the Union to dependencies that are not merely commercial. Legal, geopolitical, and technological vulnerabilities are at stake. 

Entrusting such essential functions to entities operating under other jurisdictions creates systemic risk. In stable times, this may seem minor; in today’s tense international context, it becomes critical.

Ensuring the role of public money 

This is the context in which the digital euro takes centre stage. The goal is to ensure that public, independent money issued by the central bank retains a tangible role in an increasingly dematerialised economy. As cash declines, everyday access to money risks being dominated entirely by private forms tied to bank deposits and foreign-owned payment operators—chiefly Visa and Mastercard. 

Among the world’s top ten electronic payment providers, not one is European.

The strategic dimension is accompanied by an economic one. Digital payments are never neutral. They carry costs and fees, alongside market mechanisms that affect merchants’ margins and, indirectly, final prices. 

A public European solution could stimulate competition, reducing costs that are often invisible to consumers. Small payments, in particular, are heavily affected, making cost structure a decisive factor.

Moreover, the predominance of electronic payments via non-European circuits causes a loss of seigniorage for the eurozone central banks. A digital euro would reclaim that revenue.

Data sovereignty matters

A final point concerns the data generated by transactions. Every electronic payment produces information with growing economic and strategic value. 

How these flows are located, processed, and governed raises questions of digital sovereignty, inherently linked to monetary sovereignty.

The European Parliament has sent a clear signal. A broad, cross-party majority, surpassing traditional divisions, recognised the issue’s importance and placed the digital euro among the Union’s strategic priorities. 

The aim is to strengthen monetary sovereignty and Europe’s ability to shape the digital economy rather than passively endure its transformations.

The digital euro could enter circulation before 2029. Votes on two amendments—420-158-64 and 438-158-44—underscore strong political backing. The hope is that the ECB will push the project forward and shorten technical timelines wherever possible.