European Central Bank Aims to Launch Digital Euro in 2029

The European Central Bank is reportedly targeting 2029 for the launch of its digital euro.

Officials will decide whether to continue preparatory work on the project at a meeting this week in Florence, Italy, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (Oct. 29), citing unnamed sources.

In 2023, central bankers began a two-year preparation phase for the central bank digital currency (CBDC), in hopes that the European Union would adopt the rules required to launch the digital euro. However, national governments and the European Parliament have yet to reach a consensus, the report said.

Pressure is mounting for a solution, as policymakers are unhappy about depending too much on payment giants in the United States like Visa, Mastercard and PayPal, according to the report. Also adding momentum to the debate are fears that dollar-backed stablecoins could become more popular in Europe.

Last month, European Central Bank Executive Board Member Piero Cipollone said the effort to create a digital euro had a “major breakthrough” when relevant finance chiefs came to a consensus on how to set customer holding limits.

Days earlier, EU finance ministers agreed on a roadmap for launching a digital euro backed by the ECB.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has long flirted with the idea of a CBDC in the U.S., convening conferences, publishing discussion papers and commissioning exploratory studies. However, “the Fed’s progress has been cautious, bordering on passive,” as it has made no commitments to develop or pilot a retail CBDC, PYMNTS reported July 18.

“Fed Chair Jerome Powell has consistently said that such a move would need clear support from the executive branch as well as authorization from Congress,” the report said. “That position may be politically prudent, but it also reflects a gridlock… Still, the political momentum favors stablecoins, not central banks. A U.S. CBDC would represent a public alternative to the privately issued stablecoin solutions promoted by the crypto industry.”

Also on July 18, President Donald Trump signed into law the country’s first-ever piece of crypto legislation, the GENIUS Act. The long-awaited policy framework could signal a new era for cryptocurrency in the U.S., or at least for stablecoins, the dollar-pegged tokenized assets that the GENIUS Act was written to regulate.