Digital Euro vs US CBDC Ban: Two Diverging Paths

The European Parliament approved the start of digital euro negotiations on Thursday, two days before a legal ban on a US CBDC took effect.

Meeting in plenary session in Strasbourg on 9 July 2026, MEPs approved by 416 votes to 169, with 22 abstentions, the launch of trilogue negotiations with EU member states on the regulation establishing the digital euro. The vote follows approval by the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON) in late June, restarting a file that had been largely stalled for three years amid banking-sector concerns over payment privacy and project costs.

The European Central Bank (ECB) presents the digital euro as a sovereignty tool against payment operators that are mostly American Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and against dollar-pegged stablecoins. Its legislative progress comes just as the United States has, by contrast, legally shut the door on any public digital currency of its own.

On 11 July 2026, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law without President Donald Trump's signature, after he neither signed nor vetoed it within the ten-day constitutional window. The housing-focused bill contains a clause barring the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency until 31 December 2030. The provision had passed the Senate 85-5 on 22 June and the House of Representatives 358-32 the following day margins comfortably above the threshold needed to override a presidential veto.

This legislative block builds on an executive order Trump signed in January 2025, which already barred his administration from developing a CBDC. Washington has instead chosen to regulate dollar-pegged private stablecoins through the GENIUS Act, signed into law in July 2025.

On the European side, the ECB is aiming for a potential digital euro issuance from 2029, contingent on final adoption of the regulation by the end of 2026. A pilot using a beta version of the currency could start as early as mid-2027.