Internationalizing the Euro

Jean Pisani-Ferry, director of Bruegel, a Brussels-based think tank, and professor of economics at the Université Paris-Dauphine, gave a lecture on Why the Euro is NOT the Next Global Currency on 10 December in Tokyo.

For Mr. Pisani-Ferry, although the euro is a successful regional currency, it is not en route to rival the US dollar as a global currency. His finding is based on a recently published book that revealed the dominance of the US dollar over the euro in foreign exchange transactions, international debt security markets, cross-border loans, foreign exchange reserves, trade invoicing, and bond issuances. To internationalize the euro, Mr. Pisani- Ferry proposed the following to European Union member countries: adopt pro-growth policies to expand the economic base, issue joint euro bonds and joint financial supervision to completely integrate financial markets, improve surveillance capacities to strengthen governance, and adopt a proactive stance towards “euroization.”

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