The European Union accelerates work on a digital euro and weighs public blockchains, including Ethereum and Solana, for the issue and the regulations, according to the Financial Times.
This decision follows the adoption of the American legislation of Stablecoin and a market dominated by tokens pointed out with a dollar, a backdrop which raises concerns within the European institutions concerning the role of the euro in digital payments.
The European Central Bank detailed regular preparation in its third update of progress, in particular the drafting of the rules book, research on users and an innovation platform with around 70 market players, such as the disclosure in its press release on July 16 and support.
The ECB’s public calendar indicates that the preparation phase takes place until October 2025, after which the board of directors will decide on the next steps, while the issue would always require EU legislation, according to the Central Bank’s project page.
Strategic autonomy was the main engine of politics. In April, the member of the Board of Directors Piero Cipollone declared to the Econ Committee of the European Parliament according to which a digital euro would reduce structural dependence on the payment rails not of the EU and support a resilient reference on retail payments for the block, as recorded in the declaration of launch of the ECB and the publication linked to the BIS.
These remarks supervise the urgency of a legislative path and the objective of the policy of anchoring daily payments in money from the central bank in online and offline settings.
The regulatory perimeter is already in place. EU markets in the regulation of cryptocurrencies, regulation 2023/1114, entered into force in June 2023.
The stablecoin provisions covering the electronic weapon tokens and the tokens referenced on the assets have been in force since June 30, 2024, and the wider framework of the Crypto-Asset service providers has been in force since December 30, 2024, according to ESMA, the portal summary of delegated acts of the Commission and the official entry of the newspaper.
This staged regime gives the EU authorities a harmonized platform to supervise tokens and service providers related to the euro above all launch of the CBDC.
Considering public channels implies a distribution model that could interface with existing token portfolios and assets while applying the rules of the diagram via the intermediaries. Confidentiality, detention limits and offline conviviality are design constraints in the work currents of the ECB, and no architecture has been selected, as the July bank’s documentation clearly shows it.
The FT report characterizes the exploration of Ethereum and Solana as an opening of politics rather than a finalized choice, which is aligned today with the neutral posture of the ECB.
Europe already has precedents to use public blockchains in institutional finance. The European Investment Bank issued a digital obligation of two million euros of 100 million euros in Ethereum in April 2021, documented in the BEI press release. Central banks have also tested public chain infrastructure for CBDC wholesale.
Bis Project Mariana, with the Banque de France, the monetary authority of Singapore and the Swiss National Bank, demonstrated the cross -border trading of CBDCs in large by using concepts of DFI on a public blockchain, according to the bis and the final PDF report. These experiences do not prejudge a decision from the ECB; They have operational models for token central bank liabilities on networks without authorization.
Governance and conformity would depend on the rules of the scheme and the intermediaries supervised under Mica, while the selection of technologies would shape interoperability with token deposits, titles and stables.
The ECB has reiterated that the program depends on the EU co-legislators, and external deadlines indicate a political agreement in early 2026, as Reuters reported in May. The preparation phase remains on the right track, according to the update of the ECB in July, and tests with market players continue in a framework of an innovation platform.
The political turn which brings Ethereum and Solana to the scope has arrived while EU supervisors apply the Mica to stable -co -providers’ issuers and service providers, and the ECB refines confidentiality and offline parameters for potential retail CBDC.
The evaluation of public channels is now active, the legislative way remains the trigger element and no technology or decision of final issuance has been taken today.
