Jean-Claude Juncker has vowed to turn the euro into a global reserve currency that could rival the dollar as part of the EU’s drive to reduce its financial dependence on the US.
In his last State of the Union speech to MEPs in Strasbourg yesterday, the president of the European Commission said it was an “aberration” that the EU paid for more than 80 per cent of its energy imports in dollars, despite only 2 per cent of imports coming from the US. Most of the dollar-denominated im-ports are from Russia and the Gulf states.
“We will have to change that. The euro must become the active instrument of a new sovereign Europe,” said Mr Juncker, whose five-year tenure as president is to end next year.