Today the European Parliament held a vote on the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) annual report. Two of the amendments added to the report shortly before the vote involved support for the digital euro (as first reported by EuroNews), effectively providing an indicative vote on the central bank digital currency, given legislative negotiations are ongoing. The result was strongly supportive of the CBDC, with one amendment receiving 420 in favor, 158 against and 64 abstentions (later corrected to 405:172:65). The second one was 438 for, 158 against and 44 abstentions (later corrected to 426:170:44).
While votes on central bank digital currencies might be expected to divide along party lines, with left leaning supportive and right leaning against, today the centrist and right leaning parties were split on the topic. The digital euro rapporteur, MEP Navarrete Rojas who is leading the negotiations, was amongst the no votes. The center right EPP party to which he belongs is the largest in parliament and was completely split, although more of his party’s MEPs voted in favor of the digital euro than against. The initial vote tally incorrectly recorded the far right Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) party making more votes in favor than against. This was in fact a recording error with no ESN MEPs supporting the digital euro.
A key argument that the ECB has been making is the need for payment sovereignty, with today’s retail payments dominated by Visa and Mastercard. The Ukraine war and Trump’s threats over Greenland reinforced the ECB’s arguments of late. The Rapporteur has argued that retail payments should be left to the private sector, with the European Payments Initiative (EPI) making progress in rolling out a European digital wallet, wero. Instead he proposed that the ECB should stick to an offline digital euro. One of today’s amendments and votes was specific about supporting both an online and offline digital euro.
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