The president of the European Central Bank, Christine Largarde, said that the ECB is looking to finish the digital euro preparation phase in October 2025. However, legislators recently raised doubts about whether a digital euro can take the flight according to a Reuters report on Monday.
Legislators doubt the ECB with the execution of a digital euro after an interruption that occurred with the Target 2 (T2) payment system last month, where it could not solve the transactions for one day. T2 manages large transactions. Although an ECB official said, according to the Reuters report, the digital euro would be similar to the advice of its instant payments system, 24 hours, 7 days a week and manages smaller transactions.
“Recent interruption does not undergo the robustness of the Infrastructure of the euro digital, which is being designed to ensure that payments continue to work without problems for users, even when technical problems arise,” said a spokesman for the ECB after publishing this article.
The ECB is interested in ensuring that the digital euro is launched.
“Fabio Panetta on the board and then Piero Cipollone, who has replaced Fabio, has taken the initiative along with a very good team, which focuses on accelerating the rhythm and, hopefully, to campaign enough with all the interested parties, which means that the European Parliament, the European Council, the European Commission, so that eventually we can put to bed, but to bring to the reality, but take to European at a press conference on Friday.
The ECB is aimed at finishing the digital euro preparation phase in October, said the ECB spokesman. The preparation phase began in November 2023. During this phase, the ECB will prove and discuss with several interested parties, in addition to developing a rules book for the digital euro.
A decision of the EU Governing Council is expected to occur on whether a digital euro is expected to occur after the legislation comes into force. The Governing Council includes Lagarde, Panetta together with other members of the BCE Board plus the governors of national central banks.
The digital euro, which would be the digital currency of the EU Central Bank (CBDC), a digital token issued by a central bank, different points of view have been met over the years. Some countries like Spain in the past have not seen a digital euro as something that their nation needs.
Lagarde emphasized that the need is pressing.
“I think it is vital, and for agnostics or skeptics, now it seems more relevant and more imperative than ever, both in the wholesale and retail level,” said Lagarde.
If the EU decides to broadcast a digital euro, it will continue in the steps of countries such as Bahamas, Jamaica and Nigeria that have launched their CBDC and moving away from the position of the United States so as not to produce one.
Correction (March 10, 2025, 15:45 UTC): Add comments from the European Central Bank spokesman that clarifies Lagarde’s comments on an October 2025 deadline.
