---
title: "EU Lawmakers Advance Digital Euro as the US Bans Its Own CBDC"
description: "A key European Parliament committee voted 43-14 to back the digital euro, clearing the way for negotiations on a central bank digital currency the EU casts as a tool for monetary sovereignty — just as Washington moved to bar the Federal Reserve from issuing one."
category: "Crypto"
category_url: https://boursel.com/category/crypto
author: "Daniel Okonkwo"
published: 2026-06-24T10:30:00.000Z
updated: 2026-06-24T10:30:00.000Z
canonical: https://boursel.com/article/eu-advances-digital-euro
tags: ["digital-euro", "cbdc", "european-central-bank", "european-parliament", "payments"]
---
# EU Lawmakers Advance Digital Euro as the US Bans Its Own CBDC

A key European Parliament committee voted 43-14 to back the digital euro, clearing the way for negotiations on a central bank digital currency the EU casts as a tool for monetary sovereignty — just as Washington moved to bar the Federal Reserve from issuing one.

The European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee on June 23 backed the legal framework for a digital euro, [voting 43 to 14 with one abstention](https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/06/23/european-parliament-backs-long-awaited-digital-euro-to-reduce-us-dominance-in-payments). The vote, which also [orders negotiations with EU member states](https://crypto.news/eu-lawmakers-advance-digital-euro-framework-with-committee-approval/), ends roughly three years of wrangling between central bankers and the commercial banking industry over how — and whether — to build the bloc's first official digital cash.

The committee step is a milestone, not a finish line. Parliament is expected to confirm the position in a plenary vote in early July, after which lawmakers, member states and the European Central Bank must reconcile their positions in "trilogue" talks, aiming for a final deal before year-end. No money has been issued, and the law is not yet adopted.

## What a digital euro is

A digital euro would be a central bank digital currency, or CBDC: electronic money issued directly by the ECB, the digital equivalent of physical banknotes. Unlike the balance in a commercial bank account — a claim on a private lender — a digital euro would be a direct claim on the central bank, available to ordinary people for everyday payments. It is distinct from privately issued stablecoins, which are crypto tokens pegged to a currency.

The approved text envisions both online and offline versions by 2029, with a roughly 12-month pilot involving selected merchants. The currency would be non-interest-bearing, and the ECB has said it would not be able to directly identify users from payment data, [crypto.news reported](https://crypto.news/eu-lawmakers-advance-digital-euro-framework-with-committee-approval/). Offline payments are designed to offer cash-like privacy.

## The disintermediation fight

The most contested design choice is the holding limit — a cap on how much digital euro any one person could keep. The fear, voiced by commercial banks, is "disintermediation": if households shift deposits out of banks and into central-bank money, lenders lose the cheap funding they rely on to make loans. A cap is meant to keep the digital euro a payment tool rather than a savings vehicle. The ECB has tested hypothetical limits of up to about €3,000 per person, [discussed in research on the project](https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/digital-euro-after-investigation-phase-demystifying-fears-about-bank), though the final figure has not been set. How banks would be compensated for distributing it remains one of the thorniest open questions heading into talks.

## Why Europe wants it — and why the US said no

EU officials, including ECB President Christine Lagarde, frame the digital euro as a matter of strategic autonomy. Visa and Mastercard handle about [61% of card payments in the euro area](https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/06/23/european-parliament-backs-long-awaited-digital-euro-to-reduce-us-dominance-in-payments) and nearly all cross-border transactions, and Brussels is wary of dependence on US payment networks and dollar-pegged stablecoins.

The move sharpens a transatlantic split. As Boursel has reported, the US Senate on June 22 passed a housing bill, 85-5, that [bars the Federal Reserve from issuing a CBDC through 2030](https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2026/06/22/u-s-senate-passes-housing-bill-that-carries-four-year-ban-on-a-fed-cbdc), with backers casting a retail digital dollar as a surveillance risk. Europe is building the very instrument Washington has chosen to block — a divergence that will shape how the world's two largest Western economies move money for years to come.