Rising geopolitical tensions are reinforcing the need for a European-controlled digital payments system, ECB executive board member Piero Cipollone said.
In an interview with Spanish newspaper El País, shared by the ECB on Wednesday, Cipollone described the digital euro as “public money in digital form,” designed to complement cash and address Europe’s increasingly fragmented payments landscape, particularly amid growing e-commerce.
He noted that cash accounted for about 24% of everyday transaction value in 2024, down from 40% in 2019, emphasizing the ECB’s responsibility to modernize how it delivers money as a public good.
Geopolitics reshape Europe’s payments debate
Cipollone linked this mandate to global tensions, warning that the “weaponization of every conceivable tool” makes a European retail payment system — fully under EU control and built on European technology and infrastructure rather than foreign providers — increasingly essential.
Cipollone emphasized that the digital euro should meet all of Europe’s payment needs without creating “excessive dependencies” on foreign systems.
He also stressed its legal tender status, noting that any merchant currently accepting digital payments “will have to accept” the digital euro, effectively establishing a mandatory acceptance framework.
Digital euro aims to unify EU payments
Cipollone dismissed calls to delay the project in favor of waiting for a purely private alternative, pointing out that the ECB has “been calling on the private sector to come up with a pan-European solution for many years now.”
He argued that introducing a digital euro with a single, open standard accepted by all merchants would encourage banks and fintechs to finally deliver a true pan-European retail payments layer, rather than being crowded out.
Cipollone also rejected proposals for an offline-only digital euro, noting that one of the project’s primary goals is to provide a viable European payment method for e-commerce, which an offline-only system could not achieve.
His remarks follow an open letter on January 11 from around 70 economists and policymakers urging EU lawmakers to prioritize the public interest on the digital euro and warning that further delays could deepen Europe’s reliance on dominant private and non-European payment providers.
