By Cláudia Ascensão Nunes

Digital euro advances as geopolitical tool: The EU is pushing the project to counter US payment giants (Visa/Mastercard), with the European Parliament approving a negotiating position that includes holding limits and restrictions on businesses. 

Centralized control over money: Citizens face caps on holdings (likely ~€3,000), businesses limited to 24-hour balances, shifting money from an instrument of individual freedom to a state-controlled tool with potential for programming and surveillance. 

Risks to freedom and transatlantic relations: By adopting a China-style model of state control instead of liberalizing markets, the EU risks escalating tensions with the US while reducing individual financial freedom and open competition.

For years, the digital euro was presented by the European Central Bank (ECB) merely as a modern and practical alternative to banknotes and coins. It has now been openly acknowledged that the project is intended to respond to the dominance of American payment companies. Visa and Mastercard process 61% of card payments in the euro area, according to the ECB’s own data, and it is this dependence that Brussels intends to break.

On June 23, the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) approved its negotiating position on the digital euro legislative package by 43 votes to 14. Although this approval does not constitute the final law, a final agreement with the Council is expected by the end of 2026, with implementation projected to begin only from 2029 onward.

The project, which has historically been justified by the ECB as merely a matter of convenience compared with cash, was this time presented in a European Parliament statement as a genuinely European payment option, in an attempt to counter the dominance of major American payment companies, in what could represent yet another escalation of tensions in transatlantic........

© Eurasia Review