European Central Bank President Lagarde says the euro repo line is open to all national central banks and the digital euro awaits a European Parliament vote

The European Central Bank published an interview with President Christine Lagarde in which she pointed to the ECB’s decision to broaden access to its euro repo line to all national central banks, presenting it as a mechanism to ensure euro liquidity can be provided through local central banks in times of stress. She also outlined the current status of the digital euro and the Eurosystem’s work on wholesale settlement using distributed ledger technology. Access to the repo line will be available to national central banks “except the rogue states”, and is intended to support counterparties that trade and invoice in euros. On the retail digital euro, Lagarde said the European Commission and Council are ready and that the project is now waiting for the European Parliament to vote on the legislation, including parameters such as thresholds and limits. For wholesale markets, the Pontes and Appia workstreams aim to enable settlement of tokenised deposits and assets in a distributed ledger technology format; she drew a distinction between adopting DLT and cryptocurrencies, which she described as speculative, while noting that stablecoins could be disruptive. Lagarde linked a broader international role for the euro to factors beyond central bank action, citing geopolitical strength, trade relationships and confidence in the rule of law, while noting the euro represents around 20% of central bank reserves and is edging higher. Separately, she said her “baseline” is to remain in office until the end of her term.