European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde said on Thursday (19 December) that the ECB has completed its technical and preparatory work on the digital euro, leaving the next steps to political institutions.

The project, designed to create a public digital means of payment, is currently under review by the European Council and the European Parliament.

Lagarde made the remarks during the ECB’s final press conference of the year, where policymakers kept the eurozone’s key interest rates unchanged.

She reaffirmed the central bank’s commitment to a meeting-by-meeting approach to rate decisions, stating they will be based on “incoming economic and financial data,” the inflation outlook, and how effectively policy is working.

“We are not pre-committing to a particular rate path,”

she said, noting that inflation remains on track to return to the ECB’s 2% target by 2028.

Revised projections show headline inflation averaging 2.1% in 2025, falling below target in 2026 and 2027, before returning to 2.0% in 2028 (CoinDesk).

While monetary policy remains steady, Lagarde highlighted the digital euro as a strategic priority for Europe’s financial future.

“Our ambition is to make sure that in the digital age there is a currency that is the anchor of stability for the financial system,”

she said, urging EU institutions to move quickly to adopt the digital euro regulation.

ECB board member Piero Cipollone added that a digital euro could ensure continuity of payments during cyberattacks or power outages that disrupt traditional banking infrastructure.

The digital euro is expected to launch in the second half of 2026, aligning with the timeline of other euro-backed stablecoin initiatives regulated under Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework.

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