ECB’s Cipollone Pitches Digital Euro As Cash-Like Payments Tool To Slash Foreign Dependence
The European Central Bank is making its move—and it's not subtle. Forget abstract monetary policy; the digital euro is being positioned as your everyday payment weapon.
Privacy? They're promising cash-like anonymity.
That's the core pitch from ECB's Piero Cipollone. The goal isn't just a digital token; it's a system that functions with the immediacy and privacy of physical cash, but online and offline. Think tapping your phone to pay, with the transaction staying between you and the vendor—no central ledger broadcasting your coffee habit.
The real target? Financial sovereignty.
This isn't just about convenience. The subtext screams strategic independence. The push aims to cut reliance on foreign card networks and big tech payment platforms. Europe wants its own rails, controlled by its own rules, insulating its economy from external shocks and policy whims elsewhere.
It's a direct challenge to the existing oligopoly. The digital euro could bypass the fees and data-harvesting of private intermediaries, offering a public alternative. The ECB is betting that citizens will trust a central bank's privacy promise over a corporation's terms of service—a fascinating gamble in the post-surveillance age.
Will it work? The hurdles are massive.
Public adoption is the first cliff to scale. Then there's the technical mountain: building a system robust enough for 450 million people, secure enough for hackers, and private enough for skeptics. Not to mention getting 20 different governments to agree on the fine print.
The digital euro is shaping up to be Europe's biggest financial infrastructure play in decades. It promises efficiency and autonomy but walks a tightrope between control and freedom. One banker's tool for independence is another's ledger of unprecedented reach—typical finance, always selling stability while quietly building a fortress.
Payments Sovereignty Emerges As Core Case For Digital Euro
Cipollone framed it as an add-on rather than a replacement for existing methods, with basic use free. “The digital euro, by contrast, will be free for basic use. It will be like cash, but in digital form. We’re simply creating an additional option. Coins and banknotes will still be available; no one will be forced to switch.”
He then shifted from convenience to sovereignty, arguing that digital money should not depend on non-European technology. “Don’t you feel safer knowing that the money you pay with every day is based on European technology, meaning it is in European hands and does not depend on third countries?”
To make that point, Cipollone cited the International Criminal Court, where US sanctions cut judges off from card access. “Their US cards were cut off – limiting their ability to pay across Europe, because they were blocked by Visa and Mastercard. With a digital euro they could have continued to pay throughout the euro area.”
ECB Warns Foreign Providers Could Cut Access
He warned that reliance runs deeper than it looks, because national cards often route through international schemes for cross-border and online use, and some euro area countries lack domestic payment systems.
Cipollone argued the digital euro WOULD create both the payments plumbing and the public money that flows through it, and he said the infrastructure could help European private solutions scale across borders.
That is where the foreign-dependence point becomes explicit. “Today US corporations own critical parts of the infrastructure and, in theory, they could cut us off. With a European infrastructure, we would own the “rails”. If one provider dropped out, Europe would have enough alternatives left.”
He also argued that speed matters, because standards and acceptance rules shape markets even before any launch date. “Every delay makes us more reliant on foreign payment systems.”
