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Europe spends billions of euros every year on card payments, almost all of them processed outside European systems. The vast majority of card purchases go through Visa or Mastercard, two US companies that dominate global payments.
For many years, this was considered the price to pay for the efficiency that these US giants offered whenever a card was used to pay for a service or product.
EU leaders now see this dependence as a risk that Europe can no longer ignore, given the possibility that this infrastructure could be turned into a geopolitical weapon.
This is one of the arguments used by the European Central Bank (ECB) as it seeks approval for the digital euro in the European Parliament. The institution led by Christine Lagarde warns that reliance on foreign payment systems leaves Europe exposed to political pressure or sudden disruption.
It is not only Europeans’ military security that Donald Trump could throw into chaos at the snap of his fingers. What would happen if, suddenly, the president of the United States switched off all the infrastructure that allows Europeans to pay for their everyday purchases?
The disruption could be extensive and severe. In Russia, where companies rely on Visa and Mastercard for 60% of payments, US sanctions that forced the firms to shut down their services left ordinary citizens without access to funds and unable to buy goods.
Costs and data at the heart of the debate
According to data from the European Central Bank (ECB), the US payment giants Visa and Mastercard account for 61% of card payments in the euro area and almost all cross-border card transactions.
This means that every time we use a card or a mobile phone to make a payment, that information leaves the European Union and is stored in a third country, such as the US, where it can be used to build consumer profiles.
Another argument concerns the cost of operations. Retailers say that card network fees have risen sharply in recent years. The fees are set according to commercial conditions defined outside the EU. For that reason, direct payments between bank accounts can strengthen competition and help businesses and consumers to save money.
Reducing dependence on US-based structures fits with the goal set by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is following the reports by Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta on the need for Europe to become more competitive against larger-scale companies from countries such as the United States and China.
Mario Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank, warned that global interdependence has shifted from a mechanism of mutual restraint to a tool of influence and control, as deep integration creates strategic dependencies that non-aligned powers can weaponise
