Overview
- EU governments adopted a negotiating position that opens formal talks with the European Parliament on the digital euro law.
- The mandate requires both online and offline payments, with offline device‑to‑device transfers recording only wallet funding and defunding for cash‑like privacy on low‑value transactions.
- Council support for holding caps aims to keep the currency a payments tool rather than a savings asset and to curb deposit flight from commercial banks.
- The document expands envisioned use cases to include machine‑to‑machine transactions, conditional business‑to‑business payments and Web3 contexts.
- The ECB says its two‑year technical preparation is complete, while privacy guidance notes physical proximity for offline transfers cannot be guaranteed and online data would be pseudonymized.