The EU’s plans for a digital euro have run into a political roadblock, with lawmakers in the European Parliament unable to agree on what the new form of money should actually be. The impasse threatens to delay or reshape the project just as governments and the European Central Bank are pressing to move it forward.
According to multiple sources familiar with the discussions and documents seen by Euronews, divisions among political groups are so deep that rapporteurs have acknowledged they cannot yet find a common position. “We agreed to disagree,” one person involved in the talks told the outlet, summarising a meeting held this week.
At the heart of the disagreement is the very essence of the digital euro. Fernando Navarrete, the lead rapporteur from the European People’s Party, has proposed a revised concept described as “e-cash”. Under this model, the digital euro would function only for offline payments and as a tokenised digital version of physical cash, without giving users retail accounts on the European Central Bank ledger.
That approach marks a clear departure from the European Commission’s proposal, which envisages a digital euro that can be used both online and offline, with balances ultimately backed by the ECB. Navarrete’s office did not respond to requests for comment before publication.
Other political groups are openly opposed to narrowing the project so drastically. Lawmakers from the Socialists and Democrats and Renew Europe support the Commission’s original design, arguing that a broadly usable digital euro is necessary to strengthen Europe’s payment sovereignty.
“Europe must own and control its critical infrastructure,” S&D shadow rapporteur Nikos Papandreou told Euronews, linking the debate to geopolitical uncertainty and the EU’s reliance on private and foreign payment systems.
Parliament Becomes the Bottleneck
The stakes are high because the Parliament is now the only EU institution without an agreed position on the file. EU governments, acting through the Council of the European Union, signed off their negotiating stance last December.
A plenary vote in Parliament is currently expected in May, but officials warn that internal divisions could still derail the process. Without a parliamentary mandate, no trilogue negotiations can begin between the Commission, Parliament, and Council, effectively freezing the legislative file.
This means the digital euro is no longer held up by technical work at the ECB or by resistance from member states, but by unresolved political choices among MEPs. The outcome will determine whether the digital euro emerges as a limited digital analogue of cash or as a more ambitious public payment instrument capable of operating at scale across the euro area.
For the ECB and national central banks, the deadlock adds uncertainty to an already sensitive project. For policymakers, it raises a more fundamental question: whether the EU is willing to back a common digital currency that goes beyond symbolism and meaningfully reshapes Europe’s payments landscape.