EU Parliament backs stablecoin multi-issuance, dismissing ban proposal

This week the European Parliament adopted a report on digital assets by a large majority, with 390 votes in favor and 86 against. The report covers plenty of ground, but its most consequential position concerns stablecoin multi-issuance, where the same token is issued by both an EU and a non EU entity. Parliament wants the practice put on a sound legal footing with safeguards. That is a fundamentally different stance from the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB), which last September recommended the Commission rule that MiCA does not permit the arrangements.

Multi-issuance is how the largest compliant stablecoins already operate. Circle issues USDC in the United States and separately through its French entity under Europe’s MiCA regulation, with the tokens fully interchangeable and the reserves split between issuance jurisdictions. Circle’s French regulator, ACPR, asked the Commission about the topic in 2024. In the MiCA preamble, there is a reference to multi-issuance and to allocating reserves proportionately, so the ACPR requested confirmation that this applied to e-money tokens. In the meantime national regulators have reached their own conclusions about whether the structure is allowed, creating precisely the sort of legal patchwork that MiCA was designed to prevent.

The Parliament text is a so-called own initiative report, meaning it is non binding and has no direct legal effect. It would be a mistake to dismiss it as merely an opinion. Reports of this kind set out Parliament’s negotiating position before legislation arrives, and their wording has a habit of resurfacing in binding law a year or two later. The timing is pointed. The Commission is consulting on a review of MiCA until September 30, and a legislative proposal is widely expected in 2027.

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