News

The European Central Bank has long viewed the idea of a digital euro as something remote and yet unattainable. Now this “distant” has a specific deadline. Piero Cipollone, a member of the ECB executive board, said that the mass issue of the digital currency is planned to be carried out in July 2029. This is the first official announcement of the exact dates after lengthy discussions.

Cipollone noted that the successful implementation of this schedule is directly related to the adoption of the necessary legislative framework. It is expected that the relevant decisions will be made by the end of this year. According to him, active work in this direction is already underway, and banks have expressed their willingness to participate in the test launch. The ECB representative stated that he sees no significant obstacles to the issuance of the digital euro.

According to the developed plan, testing of the digital currency will begin in the second half of 2027 and will last about twelve months. Thus, by the middle of 2028, the regulator will receive the results of a practical test of the system, after which the final stage of preparation for a full-scale launch will begin.

It is important to emphasize that the project has already received significant political support. The EU countries have approved the release of the digital euro, and the European Parliament has supported the idea of creating it based on the infrastructure of the central bank. These solutions help to remove institutional obstacles that could slow down the process.

It is worth recalling that in February, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called for speeding up the launch of the digital euro. He argued that changes in the global economy and the transformation of relations with the United States require Europe to act more quickly in the financial sector.