European Central Bank President: Europe faces the risk of losing payment sovereignty, and the digital euro is the key to breaking the deadlock

According to Finance Feeds, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde warned at the ECB meeting that Europe faces the risk of losing payment sovereignty, with dollar stablecoins and foreign networks dominating future financial infrastructure. Lagarde pointed out that Europe does not have its own pan-European card network, with international card organizations accounting for over 60% of card payments in Europe, and 13 out of 21 eurozone countries no longer having national card schemes. She stated that the digital euro could break this situation, as its status as legal tender must be accepted throughout Europe.

Lagarde emphasized that tokenized finance requires central bank money to scale safely, and market participants indicated that without central bank settlement infrastructure, they would not issue digital assets on a large scale. The European Central Bank is advancing two initiatives, Pontes and Appia, and establishing connections between TIPS and India's UPI, as well as the Southeast Asia Nexus system. She warned that if member states create their own legal frameworks independently, it would legally recreate the fragmentation that technology is currently dissolving. This competition has evolved into a geopolitical and sovereignty issue.