The European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs voted 38-12 to advance the digital euro regulation to plenary, with amendments that strengthen privacy protections and mandate offline payment capability. The legislation, if adopted, would authorize the ECB to issue a retail central bank digital currency by 2028.
Key amendments adopted by the committee include: transactions below €150 receive cash-like privacy (no identity verification or central logging), the ECB cannot access individual transaction data under any circumstances, and a hard cap of €3,000 per person prevents the digital euro from displacing bank deposits at scale.