Q15: Where does the digital euro project currently stand?

The European Central Bank answers:

The digital euro project is moving forward. The preparation phase, launched in November 2023 and concluded in October 2025, advanced technical development and learning through experimentation. This work built on the design choices and technical requirements defined during the investigation phase.

Following on from the investigation and preparation phases, the Eurosystem is now making further progress on technical work, deepening market engagement and continuing to support the legislative process. We aim to be ready for a potential first issuance of the digital euro during 2029, assuming the necessary regulation on the establishment of the digital euro is adopted in the course of 2026.

We answer them:

The digital euro is moving forward very slowly. Wero, a cross-border payment system initiated by the private European Payments Initiative, has evolved from first announcement in September 2023 to 40 million registered users in four European countries by the end of 2025, aiming to include more countries and to offer retail payments in 2026 [1]. The digital euro project, on the other hand, has been ongoing for more than five years, starting with a first report by the ECB in 2020 [2]. In case the first digital euro will be issued in 2029 as promised, private competitors might have developed far enough so that one genuine advantage of the digital euro, euro-area-wide availability of a European payment system, is no longer a distinguishing factor.

Fernando Navarette, the European Parliament’s rapporteur on the digital euro regulation draft, has raised similar concerns [3] and recently proposed changes to the legislative framework which would only introduce the online version of the digital euro on the condition that no private pan-European payment system exists [4]. If a private solution exists, only the offline version of the digital euro would remain, with all the risks discussed in Q7.

  1. EPI Company, After 12 months of existence, Wero has successfully positioned itself on payments between friends and family and is preparing its entry into the online and in-store payment market, 2026. [Online]. Available: https://epicompany.eu/media-insights/wero-successfully-positioned-itself-on-payments [Accessed: Jan. 14, 2026].
  2. European Central Bank, Report on a digital euro. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/Report_on_a_digital_euro~4d7268b458.en.pdf, 2020.
  3. F. Navarette, Do we really need the digital euro: A solution to what problem exactly?, European Parliament, 2025.
  4. F. Navarette Rojas, DRAFT REPORT on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the establishment of the digital euro (COM(2023)0369 – C9-0219/2023 – 2023/0212(COD)), 2025.