Interdisciplinary perspectives on Central Bank Digital Currencies

The European University Institute’s one-day symposium on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) held on 12 November 2025 brought together economists, lawyers, political scientists and former practitioners to reflect on how digital forms of public money are reshaping debates in Europe and beyond. In four sessions, participants explored both the retail and wholesale dimensions of CBDCs, their political economy and the research gaps that will define the next phase of inquiry.

Why CBDCs, and why now?

The opening session set the tone by highlighting just how political the question of a digital currency has become. One participant highlighted the political challenge: central banks themselves are not universally convinced of the need and desirability of CBDCs (see the self-imposed holding limits that are being proposed), while populist politicians rally supporters against CBDCs perceived as tools of (elite) state power. Political capital is scarce, but without it the central bank technical work that has gone into developing CBDCs to date will be wasted.

However, the participants broadly agreed that the structural forces pushing societies toward digital payments are not going away. Cash is expensive to maintain, and digital forms of money are proliferating. The question is not so much ‘do we need public digital money’ as ‘do we need digital public money.’ That is, money has gone digital already. Can we see any role for the public sector in the future? The answer is probably yes.

Discussion also showed that misunderstanding persists about why people turn to stablecoins and cryptocurrencies. Discontent with the banking system long predates 2008 and this explains why simply improving existing payment rails may not be enough. Competition from non-bank actors, rather than regulatory tweaks alone, might ultimately drive innovation, as China’s experience with Alipay and WeChat Pay suggests. Examples such as Nigeria’s low-uptake CBDC pilot were seen less as failures and more as geopolitical signalling of the openness of authorities to innovation.

Wholesale CBDCs and Europe’s global position

The discussion shifted to wholesale CBDCs, with participants arguing that these may matter more to global finance than their retail counterparts. In discussing the conceptual line between account-based and token-based systems, questions of governance and sanctionability were raised. Noting the data on the share of global payments potentially subject to sanctions, and on the gradual decline of the share of the dollar in central bank reserves, discussion revolved around whether alternative networks such as China’s CIPS and BIS Innovation Hub’s mBridge could meaningfully rebalance global payment infrastructure.

The EU experiments with wholesale CBDCs were examined. The Eurosystem has launched multiple wholesale experimentation tracks, from DLT-enabled settlement layers to models of interoperability with existing platforms like T2 and TIPS. Together these should make the Eurosystem fit for different future digital money scenarios. The vision of a future ‘unified ledger’ for money and securities is emerging, even if the details remain sparse.

In all the sessions, a clear takeaway emerged: CBDCs have become a focal point in which monetary governance, democratic legitimacy and geopolitical strategy intersect in addition to questions of technical design and economic objectives. The symposium underscored both the urgency and the complexity of Europe’s digital monetary transition, and the ongoing need for interdisciplinary research to navigate it.