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, 24 March 2026

Thank you for this opportunity to provide an update on the digital euro and answer your questions.

Last week, the leaders of the euro area reaffirmed, once again, the vital importance of advancing this initiative.^[1] And your recent resolution on the ECB’s Annual Report underlined how this project is essential to strengthening EU monetary sovereignty, reducing fragmentation in retail payments and supporting the integrity and resilience of the Single Market.^[2]

The Eurosystem – for its part – is continuing its technical preparations to ensure we are ready to deliver a digital euro that works everywhere in the euro area, for all use cases. We will only consider issuing the digital euro once the legislation is in place and we would issue it in full compliance with the legislation.

In parallel –…