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Introductory statement by Piero Cipollone, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament
Brussels, 14 July 2025
Thank you for inviting me to take part in this exchange of views. I would like to talk about why we need the digital euro – and the cost of not pursuing it.
My message is simple. The main reason for issuing a digital euro is to preserve the benefits of cash in the digital era. To do so, we need to complement physical cash with a digital form of cash.
The inability to use physical cash in online transactions or for digital payments at the point of sale deprives us of a key payment option, reducing resilience, competition, sovereignty and, ultimately, consumers’ freedom to choose how to pay.
This increases the risks that European consumers, merchants and policymakers face. For a growing number of their transactions, Europeans lack access to central bank money – the money that is backed by the…