Can Europe break free of Visa and Mastercard? MEPs stall digital euro(euronews.com)
euronews.com
Can Europe break free of Visa and Mastercard? MEPs stall digital euro
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/02/27/can-europe-break-free-of-visa-and-mastercard-meps-stall-digital-euro
21 comments
What about visitors like a Canadian coming to Europe for vacation? This is what in my view mastercard/visa fixes and any solution has to be basically a drop in solution for that.
Well, right now a foreign government can do that to us, so shifting the risk to our own politicians would be an improvement.
> Well, right now a foreign government can do that to us ...
Well no they can't because in addition to VISA and Mastercard we have non-centralized EUR tansfers (say from your bank account to your landlord's bank account) and we also have EUR bills and coins.
This centralized digital EUR is scary: I've already had to deal with bank accounts being wrongfully frozen and when that happens you hit a wall of people who hide behind legalize: "we're not allowed to say why your account is frozen".
In my mother-in-law's case she happened to share an identical family name to someone who had done mischief.
If it was a digital EUR and all her assets had been frozen, it'd have been catastrophic (you cannot pay your bills anymore and hence everything gets very messy very quickly).
Well no they can't because in addition to VISA and Mastercard we have non-centralized EUR tansfers (say from your bank account to your landlord's bank account) and we also have EUR bills and coins.
This centralized digital EUR is scary: I've already had to deal with bank accounts being wrongfully frozen and when that happens you hit a wall of people who hide behind legalize: "we're not allowed to say why your account is frozen".
In my mother-in-law's case she happened to share an identical family name to someone who had done mischief.
If it was a digital EUR and all her assets had been frozen, it'd have been catastrophic (you cannot pay your bills anymore and hence everything gets very messy very quickly).
why would that be any different in digital eur world versus what we have now where it was still frozen?
Yeah. Otherwise what's the point of being a sovereign country?
Famous last words. /s
Well, they can already do that, I got my bank account frozen in early January, so I had a personal experience of what that feels like in practice. I wanted to pay for a bed for a cheap hostel late at night, in the middle of January, I tried my card like usual, error. I tried my VISA, error again (if your bank account is frozen, so is your VISA, as I found out). The hostel chain (a&o) doesn't accept cash and it's middle of the night in freezing January, what do you do. Luckily I had another account that was not frozen and was able to pay with my phone, as well as some cash to survive the next days.
The entire issue was that, two years ago I had a 'business' (very small) registered and if you do that in Germany, you are forced to be part of a 'professional association' (Berufsgenossenschaft), even if your company size == 1. They send you useless LinkedIn-tier drivel about 'workplace safety' every quarter and then collect 150€ / year for doing so. Whatever, just yet another useless German tax-gobbling racket. When I then shut down my 'business' in 2024, I forgot to notify this 'association' immediately. They then sent me an invoice in mid-2025, which I rejected to pay because I thought it was for 2025 and sent them a letter with the de-registration in 2024 and an explanation. Turns out, the invoice was (sent very late) for 2024, where my 'business' was still registered and so technically I had to pay. Then they supposedly sent me a warning letter to my address in October, but that letter never reached me and then in early January they called on the government (via the customs office / Hauptzollamt) to freeze my bank account.
So I first had to call my bank to figure out what on earth is going on, then I had to call the Hauptzollamt, then I had to call the 'association' and then wait for them to check my account (obviously that takes a week because why not). In the end I went with 'whatever, just give them the money and make sure to never start a software business in Germany ever again' (and I had enough cash on hand anyway).
But the experience in the meantime was truly something else. "Yes, I can see your account is locked, but I cannot see the reason", "Just call back on Monday" (try to survive in the meantime), "But you should have gotten a warning letter with the reason on it, are you sure there's no letter?", "Please E-Mail <random address> and we'll get back to you... <crickets for a week>", etc. etc. Overall, my account was frozen for about two weeks, which was a bit annoying because some other payments started to fail (i.e. GitHubs monthly invoice, etc.).
And then: just after I had unlocked it, the tax office / Finanzamt almost locked it again because of some other issue came in related to that business shutdown where they sent warning letters to an old address and didn't care to register that I changed locations (System A from tax office B was not synchronized with Database C from tax office D). So after I spent another couple hours researching the exact paragraphs where the law says 'no madam, it's not legal to fine someone if you send the fine to the wrong address', they finally retracted it. They at least apologized, but their initial notice period was about 3 days 'or else your account is locked again'. Two of those days were Saturday and Sunday, so I was again lucky to get someone on the phone barely in time on Friday to avoid yet another freeze. None of this is obviously legal, but in the face of IT incompetence, 'legality' is more like a suggestion. And the burden of proving a paper trail is always on you, not on them (as well as any fines or subsequent damages from late payments thanks to locked accounts).
Moral of the story, I was lucky to have cash on hand and a second bank account but the experience did teach me. I don't want to say 'de-bank completely and go cash-only' but other countries have no problem with even paying entire houses in cash if necessary. Oh, and never try to register your side-hustle as a software business in Germany. Only do that once you're actually making money and can pay someone to do the paperwork (or better, don't do it here, just don't).
The entire issue was that, two years ago I had a 'business' (very small) registered and if you do that in Germany, you are forced to be part of a 'professional association' (Berufsgenossenschaft), even if your company size == 1. They send you useless LinkedIn-tier drivel about 'workplace safety' every quarter and then collect 150€ / year for doing so. Whatever, just yet another useless German tax-gobbling racket. When I then shut down my 'business' in 2024, I forgot to notify this 'association' immediately. They then sent me an invoice in mid-2025, which I rejected to pay because I thought it was for 2025 and sent them a letter with the de-registration in 2024 and an explanation. Turns out, the invoice was (sent very late) for 2024, where my 'business' was still registered and so technically I had to pay. Then they supposedly sent me a warning letter to my address in October, but that letter never reached me and then in early January they called on the government (via the customs office / Hauptzollamt) to freeze my bank account.
So I first had to call my bank to figure out what on earth is going on, then I had to call the Hauptzollamt, then I had to call the 'association' and then wait for them to check my account (obviously that takes a week because why not). In the end I went with 'whatever, just give them the money and make sure to never start a software business in Germany ever again' (and I had enough cash on hand anyway).
But the experience in the meantime was truly something else. "Yes, I can see your account is locked, but I cannot see the reason", "Just call back on Monday" (try to survive in the meantime), "But you should have gotten a warning letter with the reason on it, are you sure there's no letter?", "Please E-Mail <random address> and we'll get back to you... <crickets for a week>", etc. etc. Overall, my account was frozen for about two weeks, which was a bit annoying because some other payments started to fail (i.e. GitHubs monthly invoice, etc.).
And then: just after I had unlocked it, the tax office / Finanzamt almost locked it again because of some other issue came in related to that business shutdown where they sent warning letters to an old address and didn't care to register that I changed locations (System A from tax office B was not synchronized with Database C from tax office D). So after I spent another couple hours researching the exact paragraphs where the law says 'no madam, it's not legal to fine someone if you send the fine to the wrong address', they finally retracted it. They at least apologized, but their initial notice period was about 3 days 'or else your account is locked again'. Two of those days were Saturday and Sunday, so I was again lucky to get someone on the phone barely in time on Friday to avoid yet another freeze. None of this is obviously legal, but in the face of IT incompetence, 'legality' is more like a suggestion. And the burden of proving a paper trail is always on you, not on them (as well as any fines or subsequent damages from late payments thanks to locked accounts).
Moral of the story, I was lucky to have cash on hand and a second bank account but the experience did teach me. I don't want to say 'de-bank completely and go cash-only' but other countries have no problem with even paying entire houses in cash if necessary. Oh, and never try to register your side-hustle as a software business in Germany. Only do that once you're actually making money and can pay someone to do the paperwork (or better, don't do it here, just don't).
Why downvoted? Every dependency you have on a bank account is a serious vulnerability.
> The "Digital Euro" (and similar proposals by other political entities) has only one purpose: Causing all of your transactions and financial data to pass through government hands.
Care to explain how that would work? AFAIK, this introduces an option to not use the current banking system for payments, it doesn’t require EU citizens to use it at all, certainly not for all payments.
Governments also don’t need their own payment system to get that data. They can use laws to force banks to give it to them.
Care to explain how that would work? AFAIK, this introduces an option to not use the current banking system for payments, it doesn’t require EU citizens to use it at all, certainly not for all payments.
Governments also don’t need their own payment system to get that data. They can use laws to force banks to give it to them.
> The "Digital Euro" (and similar proposals by other political entities) has only one purpose: Causing all of your transactions and financial data to pass through government hands.
They already do. Next theory?
They already do. Next theory?
How ?
I don’t think they can suddenly declare "these 10 bills with serial number 1,2,3 in blitzar's wallet are not legal tender" and everyone starts rejecting your cash.
I don’t think they can suddenly declare "these 10 bills with serial number 1,2,3 in blitzar's wallet are not legal tender" and everyone starts rejecting your cash.
Depends on the size of denomination of the bills.
Snark aside..
Obviously a digital currency enables far more control and surveillance, but the long march towards digital means of payment via the traditional financial system and systematic outlawing of cash has slowly tightened the noose.
You are down to very low value transactions being legal in most of Western Europe now. And the trends are getting worse.
Central banking digital currency is just the final step in a decades long process. You can get to close to the same effectiveness on the ground without going full Monty.
Snark aside..
Obviously a digital currency enables far more control and surveillance, but the long march towards digital means of payment via the traditional financial system and systematic outlawing of cash has slowly tightened the noose.
You are down to very low value transactions being legal in most of Western Europe now. And the trends are getting worse.
Central banking digital currency is just the final step in a decades long process. You can get to close to the same effectiveness on the ground without going full Monty.
>"The project would create an electronic form of cash issued by the European Central Bank, designed to sit alongside banknotes and the payments services offered by commercial banks. Supporters argue it would give citizens direct access to digital “public” money — something that, for now, largely exists only in the form of cash."
I don't get how does the creation of a new "digital Euro" supposed to replace Visa and Mastercard, when they're just payment processors transactioning the existing euros, not specialized digital ones.
So shouldn't the EU build a Visa/Mastercard competitor instead of a new currency? What am I missing here?
Also this breaks my brain:
>"Brussels proposed a digital form of cash that could be used both online and offline. Navarrete, by contrast, is pushing for an offline-only model."
How is digital cash supposed to work offline-only? By offline do they mean without a centralized authority(like crypto) or without internet connectivity?
I don't get how does the creation of a new "digital Euro" supposed to replace Visa and Mastercard, when they're just payment processors transactioning the existing euros, not specialized digital ones.
So shouldn't the EU build a Visa/Mastercard competitor instead of a new currency? What am I missing here?
Also this breaks my brain:
>"Brussels proposed a digital form of cash that could be used both online and offline. Navarrete, by contrast, is pushing for an offline-only model."
How is digital cash supposed to work offline-only? By offline do they mean without a centralized authority(like crypto) or without internet connectivity?
> So shouldn't the EU build a Visa/Mastercard competitor instead of a new currency.
We had one. Europay International was the "E" in the "EMV" smart payment card standard, and they used to dominate the European payment card industry.
They merged with MasterCard in 2002.
We had one. Europay International was the "E" in the "EMV" smart payment card standard, and they used to dominate the European payment card industry.
They merged with MasterCard in 2002.
It was a different time. I reckon the same acquisition, today, would not get approval from the much-beefed-up EU regulatory authority (i.e. the competition commissioner).
It's too late to fix the past, but we can avoid making the same mistakes in the future, if we continue to work towards federal structures.
It's too late to fix the past, but we can avoid making the same mistakes in the future, if we continue to work towards federal structures.
I remember reading about proposals and experiments with anonymous digital cash that predated blockchain (or at least bitcoin becoming big) and worked fully offline. I have do idea how they were supposed to work.
They probably didn't - that's why we have bitcoin instead. Nobody knew how to solve the double spend problem until bitcoin.
Bitcoin does not solve it offline. Blockchain is distributed, but very much online.
"with opposition mainly coming from some centrist and far-right MEPs"
Word salad. Are we supposed to deduce that it's only pushed by leftists? Why does journalism today require reading between the lines? Just tell us what's happening.
Word salad. Are we supposed to deduce that it's only pushed by leftists? Why does journalism today require reading between the lines? Just tell us what's happening.
First, consider: The Euro is already digital, as are all the other European currencies. We can easily transfer money electronically, either via our bank, or via a variety of different apps.
The "Digital Euro" (and similar proposals by other political entities) has only one purpose: Causing all of your transactions and financial data to pass through government hands.
Complete surveillance. The government knows everything about your financial life, and can intervene whenever and however it wants: from stopping an individual transaction to completely freezing your assets. De-banking made easy.