BRUSSELS, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- The European Commission on Wednesday presented actions to further strengthen the euro's global role, calling on European Union member states to promote the wider use of the euro in strategic sectors.
The Commission has adopted a recommendation to promote the use of the euro in international energy agreements and transactions, which will allow European businesses to benefit from stronger autonomy and to finance themselves with reduced exposure to legal actions taken by third country jurisdictions, a Commission press release said.
The EU is concerned that European businesses still trade in U.S. dollar in key strategic markets, often even between themselves, which exposes them to currency risks and political risks.
"The euro should reflect the euro area's political, economic and financial weight and support a balanced, rules-based international political and economic order," European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said.
With an open and competitive internal market, the EU is the world's largest energy importer with an average import bill of 300 billion euros (340 billion U.S. dollars).
In this context, Miguel Arias Canete, commissioner for climate action and energy, underlined that strengthening the international role of the euro in the field of energy investment and trade will help reduce the risk of supply disruptions and promote the autonomy of European businesses.
As a next step, the Commission will launch a series of targeted consultations with stakeholders and report on the results in the summer of 2019.
The Commission also invites the EU member states' leaders to discuss the international role of the euro during next week's European Council and Euro Summit.
In September, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker vowed in his State of the Union address in Strasbourg to strengthen the single currency as "the face and the instrument of a new, more sovereign Europe" in order to break the dominance of the U.S. dollar in the global financial system.
