The European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee voted on Wednesday to adopt a report on strengthening the international role of the euro, after the centre-right European People’s Party secured significant amendments to the original draft.
The own-initiative report, which sets out a framework for expanding the euro’s global standing, was revised at the EPP’s insistence to remove provisions centred on joint EU debt issuance. The original draft had been prepared by Rasmus Andresen, a Green MEP acting as rapporteur.
Markus Ferber, economic spokesman for the EPP Group and a German MEP, said the current political climate presented an opening for the single currency. “The erratic economic policy of the Trump administration is shaking confidence in the dollar worldwide,” he said. “That is a historic opportunity for the euro to establish itself as a reliable alternative.”
Mr Ferber argued that a greater international role for the euro would deliver tangible economic benefits, including lower financing costs for European companies and reduced exchange-rate risk for exporters, as well as greater geopolitical influence for the bloc.
He was sharply critical of the report’s original focus on shared debt instruments, describing the Andresen draft as ideologically driven. The amended text instead identifies deeper capital markets, sound fiscal policy and improved financial infrastructure as the principal mechanisms for boosting the euro’s global profile.
The vote marks a fresh instance of tension within the European Parliament over the question of fiscal integration. Proponents of joint EU debt issuance, including some on the left and among the Greens, argue it would create a deep, liquid safe asset that could rival US Treasuries and underpin the euro’s reserve currency ambitions. Critics, led by fiscally conservative northern European member states and their political allies, contend that such arrangements amount to mutualising debt and exposing taxpayers to shared liabilities.
The euro currently accounts for roughly 20 per cent of global foreign exchange reserves, well behind the dollar’s share of approximately 58 per cent, according to International Monetary Fund data.
The committee’s report will now proceed to a plenary vote in the full European Parliament. Own-initiative reports are non-binding but carry political weight in shaping the legislative agenda of the European Commission.