“Strengthening the solvency of Europe has become a geopolitical necessity,” Markus Ferber, a senior member of the ECON committee, said on Tuesday.
“In a world marked by geopolitical tensions, we can no longer accept that digital payments are largely dependent on the goodwill of a few foreign providers,” he added, echoing concerns expressed across the EU.
The new rules adopted by the ECON committee cleared the way for the ECB to introduce both online and offline versions of the currency by 2029. Crucially, the offline version will allow users to exchange digital euros directly from phone to phone without an internet connection, guaranteeing cash-like privacy that prevents the ECB from seeing what citizens are buying.
The EU central bank’s digital euro approval comes just hours after the US Senate voted for a four-year ban on a CBDC. The bill will now go to the House of Representatives. If they follow suit, it will go to President Donald Trump for his signature.
Commercial banks have successfully lobbied for strict holding limits on how much a citizen can keep in a digital wallet to avoid a mass exodus of cash from traditional accounts during a crisis.
The ECB will now conduct a 12-month pilot phase using a beta version to test the infrastructure in real-world scenarios with selected merchants and payment service providers.
