Europe‘s Long Road to Digital Public Money & Some Lessons from the Dutch Debate

This article traces Europe's digital euro debate back to post-2008 Dutch discussions about public alternatives to commercial bank money, including the 110,000-signature "Ons Geld" initiative. Though the Netherlands Scientific Council backed a public monetary option, Finance Minister Hoekstra rejected it in 2019, shifting the debate to the ECB. Since then, the digital euro's ambitions have shrunk from rivaling private bank money to merely being another payment method, with a €3,000 holding cap. Meanwhile, eurozone banking stays oligopolistic. The author warns geopolitical framing shouldn't eclipse this domestic issue, with a 2026 EU Parliament vote as the deciding moment.