[PRESSTV] The EU commission on Wednesday presented its plan to reduce the dollar's overwhelming dominance of the global economy and to strengthen the role of the euro, particularly for energy transactions.
European capitals are increasingly frustrated with the global dominance of the dollar as a reserve currency, which hands the United States unparalleled diplomatic and economic power in a globalized world.
Governments, banks and multinationals are at the mercy of US authorities, which have the legal power to switch off access to the world economy if any company or country should run afoul of Washington.
"In the current context of incertitudes -- trade conflicts, extra territorial sanctions by the US -- the market participants are looking for alternative," said EU economics affairs commissioner Pierre Moscovici at a news conference in Brussels.
The most frustrating recent example for the EU is Iran, where international companies that choose to trade or invest with the Islamic Theocratic Republic despite US sanctions are vulnerable to punishment by Washington in part through their use of the dollar.
The single currency -- born on January 1, 1999 -- "should reflect the political, economic and financial weight of the eurozone", the single currency bloc of 19 EU countries, said European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis. |