Europe is heavily dependent on American payment infrastructures, Visa and Mastercard, which account for 61% of card transactions in the eurozone. Initiatives such as Wero and the digital euro seek to strengthen its sovereignty, but are progressing slowly and raising questions. In a context of geopolitical competition, how can Europe assert its autonomy in this area?
EU dependence on digital and payment infrastructure
Nicolas Guillou, a French judge at the International Criminal Court, has been subject to US sanctions since August 20, 2025. This crackdown comes in response to his involvement in issuing an international arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The price he has to pay for this has major practical consequences, namely the freezing of his bank accounts (even in the euro zone) and the blocking of his means of payment (Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Amazon, Apple Pay).
This attack on independence and the international legal order comes amid geopolitical tensions between Europe and the United States. What would happen if Donald Trump decided to cut Europe off from the Visa and Mastercard networks?
Recently, the concepts of “sovereignty” and “strategic autonomy” have been omnipresent in public and political debate. However, as the Exaion case shows, their scope differs greatly depending on whether they serve pragmatic interests or political promises.
In recent days, Aurore Lalucq, Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, has made numerous public appearances to defend European sovereignty in the digital and payments sectors.
“Visa, Mastercard… the urgent issue is our payment system. Trump can cut us off completely.
The rest is poetry.
I urgently call on the Commission to organize a European Airbus for payment systems.
You can’t say you weren’t warned.” pic.twitter.com/y2VRsZTNF0
— Aurore Lalucq 🇪🇺 (@AuroreLalucq) January 21, 2026
It should be noted that the American duopoly Visa and Mastercard account for 61% of card payments in the eurozone, according to the ECB. It could be argued that some countries have their own networks, such as France with the CB network, Germany with Girocard, Belgium with BPC, as well as Norway, Denmark, Portugal, and Italy. However, as our colleague Grégory Raymond points out, all other countries remain entirely dependent on Visa and Mastercard’s infrastructure.
With the new tensions between Europe and the United States, the question naturally arises as to the risks if Trump decides to suspend the Visa and Mastercard payment networks.
This seems unlikely to me, but with the current US administration, we have learned that… pic.twitter.com/cWPsuLnXmz
— Grégory Raymond 🐳 (@gregory_raymond) January 18, 2026
Furthermore, these national systems were designed to operate solely on a national scale and do not support cross-border payments. Thus, in the early 2000s, faced with the choice of joining Visa and Mastercard or financing the costly expansion of their own systems, European banks opted for the most economical solution.
Today, the reality of our geopolitical situation reminds us that a technological choice can bring with it structural dependencies. Visa and Mastercard are not simply technical service providers, as they not only transmit transactions between banks, but also define the rules of the network, secure exchanges, and certify terminals.
In addition to this political dimension, economic dependence must also be taken into account. Neither banks nor merchants have any bargaining power when it comes to the fees and service developments offered by the American giants.
Wero and the digital euro: instruments of European sovereignty?
In light of this situation, in 2020, a consortium of major European banks launched the European Payments Initiative (EPI) project. After coming up against economic reality, several banks withdrew from this extremely costly project.
Following this failure, the EPI decided to rely on an existing but underutilized technology: the SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) instant transfer. This system then gave rise to the Wero system, which we know today for its ability to make transfers in a matter of seconds, directly between bank accounts.
Rolled out to the general public in 2024, Wero currently only allows payments between individuals. However, the credibility of the project depends on its ability to be accepted by merchants, which is essential if it is to compete effectively with Visa and Mastercard.
At the same time, the ECB is working on another project: the digital euro. This central bank digital currency (CBDC) aims to introduce a new form of currency to complement the current euro. This project is progressing slowly: launched in 2021, the ECB plans to issue the first coins in 2029. It also raises serious concerns about privacy, security, and control.
Does centralization go hand in hand with autonomy?
According to Gregory Raymond, the only viable solution lies in stablecoins. For the past week, Ingenico, the French world leader in payment terminals, has been offering its merchant customers the option of accepting payments in stablecoins through WalletConnect.
To date, the stablecoins supported are USDC and EURC from the American company Circle. As our colleague explains, EURCV, developed by Société Générale’s crypto subsidiary, is promising but faces scaling issues due to insufficient liquidity.
Once again, reality shows that sovereignty remains a desirable political ideal, while American infrastructure benefits from scalability and deployment capabilities that are difficult to match.
It is also interesting to consider the difference between the terms “sovereignty” and “autonomy.” What about a stablecoin issued and guaranteed by a private company? Whether the central institution is public, private, federal, or national, this intermediary requires the trust of users.
Could the tool for our autonomy be an apolitical, flagless object that is already accessible in its purest form all over the world? What if the solution we are looking for is actually right in front of us? Yes, I am talking about Bitcoin.
