Digital euro set for 2029 after ECB, EU reach accord

European Central Bank (ECB) executive board member Piero Cipollone revealed that the bank has settled on 2029 as a realistic timeline for establishing a digital euro, in the form of an online payment wallet backed by the central bank.

• Digital euro rollout in 2029
• ECB’s Lagarde signals digital euro accord
• Tracing back the CBDC project

Speaking at Bloomberg’s Future of Finance event in Frankfurt, Germany, on Tuesday, Cipollone hailed a “major breakthrough” last week after the European Union finance ministers agreed on a framework for customer holding limits, a key feature for controlling usage and safeguarding bank deposits.

“The discussion at the level of member-states is going very well,” he said. “The middle of 2029 could be a fair assessment.”

Cipollone also suggested that the EU Parliament, the European Council, and the European Commission could come to an agreement about the best way to progress by the end of 2025.

“We should arrive at a general approach, as they call it, an agreement among member-states by the end of the year,” Cipollone said, adding that if a consensus on approach to the digital euro is reached by the end of the year, the ECB will require around two and a half to three years to launch, which is how he landed on 2029 as the possible date.

The EU and ECB have been working since 2021 on a possible central bank digital currency (CBDC) for the bloc, in the form of the digital euro. However, while the ECB has made its favorable opinions very clear—pitching the digital euro as a viable digital payment option that covers the entire eurozone and an alternative to the dominant U.S.-based Visa (NASDAQ: V) and Mastercard (NASDAQ: MA) system—the European parliament has been dragging its feet on the necessary legislation.

In April, Cipollone presented to the EU Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) an update on the developments of the digital euro project, urging members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to make progress on the legislative front.

He repeated this plea on September 4, in another speech to ECON, urging “progress in the legislative process,” to provide Europeans with a clear and specific timeline for when they can expect the digital euro to become a reality.

In a Eurogroup press conference in Denmark last week, ECB president Christine Lagarde indicated that an agreement may finally be in place that will allow legislation to progress.

According to a Reuters report, the compromise agreement was reached between EU finance ministers, ECB president Lagarde, and European Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis, that would give the EU ministers a say on whether or not a digital euro is issued and how much money each EU resident will be able to hold in the digital euro, in order to assuage fears of bank runs.

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