ECB tells EU lawmakers: finish digital euro law or the 2029 launch slips

European Central Bank executive board member Piero Cipollone took the digital euro pitch straight to lawmakers on Tuesday, November 10, telling the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs that the legislation must be finished before the end of 2026. In a speech titled “Cash and the digital euro: two sides of the same coin,” he argued that an unsettled geopolitical backdrop makes swift progress on the project “essential to strengthen Europe's autonomy in payments.” Talks between the Parliament, the Council of the EU and the European Commission are still grinding on, with roughly seven weeks left in the year.

The clock is the whole story. Cipollone said five days earlier, at the eighth International Conference of Regional Card Schemes and Retail Financial Market Infrastructures, that issuance in 2029 is still achievable — but only if lawmakers deliver the law in time. He has repeated the caveat that the 2029 target holds as long as final legislation lands by year-end. When a Parliament vote slipped from May 5 to June 23 in April, he waved it off at a Peterson Institute discussion: “We have been patient for three years, it doesn't cost much to wait a couple more months.”

Preparations are moving regardless of the politics. Cipollone said the 12-month pilot kicks off in the second half of 2027 and will involve Eurosystem staff, participating payment service providers and selected merchants offering everyday services — canteens at the ECB and participating national central banks among them. Thirty-six market operators are set to take part.

The ECB's argument is about who controls the rails. Cipollone has pointed out that 13 euro-area countries lean on non-European firms for in-store card payments, and said in an October interview that non-European companies govern two-thirds of card payments across the euro area. “In recent years Europe has learned that, for some essential services, we cannot rely only on third parties. We saw this with energy, and we're seeing it today with defense. And the same is true for payments,” he said, adding that sovereignty means having the option to choose, not shutting outside firms out.

Brussels has been chewing over the details. The Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee adopted its position in June by 43 votes to 14 with one abstention, setting demands on privacy, fees and holding limits, and the Parliament voted in July to open negotiations with member states. Rapporteur Fernando Navarrete Rojas framed the project simply: the digital euro would “complement cash, never replace it.”

ECB President Christine Lagarde has pitched the digital euro against privately issued stablecoins, promoting it as an alternative to dollar-pegged tokens and warning their spread could erode central banks' grip on monetary policy.