Yesterday, during a hearing of the ECON committee of the European Parliament, it was confirmed that the committee will vote on the digital euro legislation on 23 June and whether to start trilogue discussions with the Council and European Commission. The latest CBDC draft legislation has not yet been published. A previous draft published late last year only supported an offline privacy preserving version. For a while last year there were doubts about whether the digital euro would receive parliamentary backing. However, a straw poll vote in February appeared to change the tide, providing overwhelming support for the CBDC as well as both an online and offline version of the digital euro.
During yesterday’s hearing, ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone wasn’t treating it as a foregone conclusion, but seemed quietly confident that Parliament will back the project. Asked about a public marketing plan, he responded that previously “it would have been completely inappropriate for us to go and (start) advertising a product that is not there and has not received the blessing of the co-legislators. But now that we see the light at the end of this tunnel, we are really planning on that.” In the coming months there’s likely to be a call for creative ideas and providers for implementation.
Preparation for the mid-2027 pilot is underway, ahead of a 2029 launch. Fifty payment service providers applied to participate and the selection will be announced in July. Cipollone clarified that the end users participating in the pilot will be limited to employees of Eurosystem central banks.
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