On January 28, 2026 (Pacific Time), Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU’s economic commissioner, said something that European policymakers usually imply rather than state: Europe needs a digital euro to cut its dependence on dominant U.S. payment companies. He pointed out that Visa and Mastercard handle nearly two-thirds of all EU card transactions, and argued that this level of reliance makes Europe vulnerable in a world where economics and technology are increasingly used as strategic leverage.
That framing matters. It turns the digital euro from a “modern payments upgrade” into something more political: an attempt to keep public money relevant in a private,
