Madrid: The digital euro negotiations between Parliament and Council have moved into their hardest phase since talks opened on 13 July 2026, and negotiators now have to settle how much money households may hold and what shops pay to accept it. The Irish presidency of the Council wants a political agreement before the end of 2026.
Parliament cleared the way on 9 July 2026, when MEPs backed the negotiating mandate by 416 votes to 169, with 22 abstentions. Conservative and sovereigntist groups forced that plenary vote after the economic affairs committee had moved to open talks on 23 June. Fernando Navarrete Rojas, the Spanish centre-right MEP who leads Parliament’s team, has said the digital euro would “complement cash, not replace it”.
A second political round took place on 10 September 2026 at the European Parliament, after technical meetings that began on 1 September. According to Agence Europe, the working document covers conflict-of-interest rules, online and offline payment modes, and the resilience of the payment platform during outages or cyberattacks. Those provisions show how far the digital euro negotiations have moved from principle to drafting detail.
The digital euro negotiations hinge on two open questions. The first is the holding limit, which caps how much each person can keep in digital euros to protect bank deposits. The OMFIF think tank notes that a figure of €3,000 per consumer has featured in the debate, with no holdings for businesses, and it estimates that such a cap would cost banks between 8 and 18 basis points of net interest income.
The second question is merchant compensation, meaning the fees that retailers would pay for accepting digital euro payments. Parliament wants the ECB to issue and manage the currency, to protect privacy and to keep basic services free for users. Under Parliament’s text, most businesses would have to accept the digital euro, but small firms and the self-employed would receive exceptions.
Banks and payment providers follow the digital euro negotiations closely. Lenders fear that large digital euro balances could drain deposits in a crisis, while supporters argue that European payments need an alternative to foreign card schemes. The ECB’s own analysis, cited by OMFIF, found that even in extreme bank-run scenarios only nine of about 2,000 assessed banks risked breaching liquidity buffers.
The calendar for the digital euro negotiations remains tight. Reporting on the July vote points to an ECB pilot in 2027 and retail availability around 2029, provided lawmakers finish the legislation on time. A related file on the legal tender status of euro banknotes and coins faced no opposition and travels alongside the main proposal.
The digital euro negotiations will decide whether the euro area gets a public digital payment option that respects cash and privacy. If the co-legislators settle the holding limit and the merchant fee question this autumn, the 2026 deadline stays within reach.
