\n Published on 03\/02\/2026 – 18:21 GMT+1\u2022Updated
\n 18:49\n <\/p>\n
Lawmakers at the European Parliament are struggling to find a compromise position on the design of the digital euro, putting the project’s legislative path in jeopardy, according to three sources familiar with the matter and documents seen by Euronews.<\/p>\n
In a meeting on Tuesday, the rapporteurs noted that there is a strong disagreement on the very essence of what the digital euro should look like, making it very challenging to move forward, according to an email exchange seen by Euronews.<\/p>\n
“We agreed to disagree,” a person familiar with the matter told Euronews, summarising the essence of the discussion.<\/p>\n
According to the agenda from Tuesday’s meeting, the European People’s Party (EPP) rapporteur Fernando Navarrete, who is leading on the file in the European Parliament, made a new proposal on the concept of the digital euro, calling it “e-cash”.<\/p>\n
That model would be used only for offline payments and as a “tokenised digital form” of cash, without granting users retail accounts on the European Central Bank (ECB) ledger.<\/p>\n
Euronews reached out to Navarrete’s office for comment, but received no reply before publication.<\/p>\n
By contrast, the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and Renew Europe support the European Commission\u2019s proposal, with users holding retail accounts on the ECB\u2019s ledger and using the digital euro both online and offline.<\/p>\n
“Europe must own and control its critical infrastructure. At a time of unprecedented geopolitical change, as we witness the dissolution of rules bases international order, payment sovereignty must be anchored in common infrastructure”, S&D shadow rapporteur Nikos Papandreou told Euronews.<\/p>\n
The European Parliament is the only institution that has yet to take a position on the file, with EU countries already agreeing their position last December.<\/p>\n
A vote on the file is expected in May at the European Parliament’s plenary session, but divisions between legislators could thwart its passage.<\/p>\n
Should the digital euro be approved in the plenary, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council would then negotiate a political agreement. <\/p>\n
However, no negotiations among the three can take place until the Parliament agrees on a position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on 03\/02\/2026 – 18:21 GMT+1\u2022Updated 18:49 Lawmakers at the European Parliament are struggling to find a compromise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,104123,11450,5148,61,60],"class_list":["post-279630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-digital-euro","tag-european-parliament","tag-european-union","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}