The European Digital Euro project has made key progress again recently. The Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliament has approved the relevant position, which means that this long-gestating central bank digital currency plan is one step closer to its official implementation. One of the core goals of this proposal is to reduce Europe's reliance on the US-dominated payment system for daily retail payments, especially multinational card organizations such as Visa and Mastercard.
Judging from the legislative process, this is not the first time that the digital euro has crossed the threshold. EU member states had formed a common position on the project as early as December 2025, and the European Parliament subsequently supported the design of a digital euro with dual online and offline modes in February 2026, overturning the previous proposal to retain only the offline version. This means that Europe has basically unified the institutional direction of the digital euro and is no longer obsessed with "whether to do it", but to "how to do it".
The ECB hopes that the digital euro will have both online and offline functions so that it can adapt to modern payment scenarios while retaining the cash-like experience. Piero Cipollone, a member of the European Central Bank’s Executive Board, has also been emphasizing that this dual-mode design can make digital currencies closer to cash and enhance European monetary sovereignty. However, the project still has many technical and legal details that need to be resolved, such as the holding limit of each user, privacy protection, data rules, and division of labor with commercial banks and payment service providers.
The reason why this plan has received high attention is related to Europe’s concerns about the independence of payment infrastructure in recent years. From a European perspective, if the retail payment infrastructure remains in the hands of U.S. companies for a long time, Europe's financial autonomy will be affected once cross-border settlements, sanctions policies or business rules change. Therefore, the digital euro is not just a technical project, but also regarded as an important tool for Europe to maintain monetary sovereignty and reduce external dependence.
Under the current timetable, the European Parliament is expected to formally confirm the Commission's position at a plenary session in early July, before the EU's 27 member states enter a formal negotiating phase. Lawmakers hope to reach a final agreement before the end of this year, and the road map previously given by the European Central Bank shows that if the legislation advances smoothly, the digital euro may start pilots in 2027 and be officially issued around 2029. This means that the digital euro has gradually entered the foreseeable implementation stage from policy conception.