The European Council published an account of the Eurogroup’s first meeting of the year, where euro area finance ministers held a strategic discussion on key economic policy priorities for 2025 and the medium term, and reviewed work on modernising payments, including wholesale settlement innovation and the digital euro. Ministers exchanged views on topics including competitiveness, fiscal policy and global development, informed by the European Commission’s perspective on priorities over the next five years, with an emphasis on conditions for stronger growth and resilience and on decisions in 2025 intended to strengthen the euro. On wholesale payments, the discussion covered options to modernise settlement of wholesale transactions in central bank money in response to rapidly evolving market needs, including developments in distributed ledger technology and tokenisation. The European Central Bank shared encouraging results from its exploratory work with the private sector on using new technologies for central bank money settlement, which ministers noted could improve speed, efficiency and transparency and potentially support European capital market integration. On the digital euro, ministers noted continued European Central Bank technical preparations and advancing co-legislator deliberations in the Council and European Parliament on a proposed legal framework, against a backdrop of declining cash use, increasing mobile payments adoption and rising consumer use of international payment methods. The strategic discussion is intended to feed into the Eurogroup’s coordination work through preparation of its next work programme, which is set to be discussed at the next meeting.

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