Protect cash and embrace the digital Euro

With the single currency package, the EPP Group wants to protect citizens' freedom to choose how they pay by safeguarding cash and introducing the digital euro. Leading EPP MEPs Fernando Navarrete Rojas and Markus Ferber welcome the outcome of today’s vote in Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee that follows this line. The committee also directly mandated the start of so-called trilogue negotiations between EU member states and the Parliament.

"We strengthen access to and acceptance of cash while making central bank money available in digital form. The digital euro will complement cash, not replace it. Citizens will be able to use it both offline and online if they choose, including without an internet connection. No one should be forced away from cash, and no one should be left without a secure, resilient and genuinely European digital payment option," said Navarrete Rojas MEP, the Parliament’s negotiator on the single currency package.

"Strengthening the resilience of payments in Europe has become a geopolitical necessity. In a world marked by geopolitical tensions, we can no longer accept that digital payments are largely dependent on the goodwill of a few foreign providers. This package changes that. It protects cash as a universal means of payment and adds a European digital option. The euro must work in your pocket and on your phone. This package delivers both," complements Ferber MEP, EPP Group spokesman for the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee.

Navarette continues: "Paying digitally does not mean giving up your privacy. The Parliament ensures that privacy is built into the digital euro from the outset. Offline payments will offer a level of privacy very close to cash. For online payments with the digital euro, data protection requirements are far higher than those for credit card companies and payment providers currently in use."

Ferber concludes: "The digital euro is not a surveillance instrument. The ECB will not be able to see what users are paying for. In fact, the central bank will have access to less information than banks and payment service providers have today. What is nobody's business in your wallet must remain nobody's business in the digital world."

The digital euro will be issued by the European central banks and distributed by the commercial banks. At the same time, the new rules strengthen the availability and acceptance of cash for citizens in their daily lives. Member states must ensure that access to cash is sufficient and effective throughout their territory, including in rural and less populated areas. Merchants must accept euro banknotes and coins in face-to-face payments.