European Parliament backs Digital Euro to bring public money into the digital age

23 June 2026 - 12:25 h

Media Alert

Finance Watch welcomes the outcome of today’s vote in the European Parliament’s ECON Committee on the digital euro and the legal tender of euro banknotes and coins.

Parliament’s position is a major step towards a digital euro that works like cash. Unlike most digital payments today, Parliament’s version of the digital euro would give people a way to pay that is free for basic use, widely accessible and designed to protect privacy. Merchants would also have a cheaper alternative to costly private card schemes such as Visa and Mastercard.

Parliament has found a majority for a digital euro that is more than another payment app. The text keeps the original ambition of the project alive: ensuring inclusive access to public money in an increasingly digital payments landscape, all while protecting European sovereignty.

Peter Norwood, Senior Research and Advocacy Officer at Finance Watch

The approved text includes features needed to make the digital euro useful in practice. Free basic use, wide acceptance, easy access, and stronger privacy mean people can pay digitally without giving up the basic protections associated with cash. Availability for people who are unbanked or at risk of unfair exclusion also extends access to those who may be cut off from foreign-controlled payment services for political reasons. That makes Europe’s payments more inclusive, more sovereign and more resilient.

Importantly, this is not about replacing cash. The European Parliament’s ECON committee also adopted a position on the legal tender of euro banknotes and coins. With the Parliament’s two positions, people would have a choice between public money in physical form, public money in digital form, or private payment options like Visa or MasterCard.

The two proposals belong together. The legal tender position would protect banknotes and coins in everyday payments, so when people want to pay with cash, they can. The digital euro position extends cash-like payments to the digital world, so when people want to pay digitally, they have a public option, online and offline. Together, they give people and businesses a real choice rather than the existing model based only on cash and private digital money.

A digital euro with cash-like features gives people and businesses a public European alternative, insulated from geopolitics, free for essential use, widely accessible, privacy-preserving, and backed by legal tender status.

Going into trilogues, Finance Watch urges Parliament and Council to preserve the level of ambition reached in today’s vote.