Speech by Piero Cipollone, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei

Rome, 12 February 2026

Preserving monetary sovereignty has been a key objective of our single currency.^[1] And as guardian of the euro, the European Central Bank (ECB) makes a key contribution to Europe’s independence. But while money is one of the most advanced aspects of European integration, we cannot take our monetary sovereignty for granted in the face of today’s geopolitical and technological developments.

In a world where external threats are growing and dependencies are used as leverage, it is becoming increasingly obvious that Europeans can no longer outsource core functions that are critical to their security and prosperity. This is specifically true for payments and finance, where I will argue that our dependencies have become excessive.

To put it simply: if we lose control of our money, we lose control of our economic destiny. And we surrender a key attribute of…