On Monday 16 February, in the Council of the European Union, the finance ministers of the euro area countries will discuss the international role of the euro and reappoint Tuomas Saarenheimo of Finland as President of the Eurogroup Working Group for a third two-year term, starting in April (see EUROPE 13357/32).
Ministers will deepen their discussions on how to strengthen the international role of the euro and promote European monetary sovereignty.
“The topic is extremely salient”, stated a senior European diplomat on Friday 13 February, saying that the days were over when an “agnostic” view of the role of the single currency around the world prevailed.
“We have come to realise that a stronger international role of the euro actually serves a number of purposes. It supports financial and monetary sovereignty. It improves the funding conditions for our economy. It helps to promote our interests in the neighbourhood and beyond”, he said, drawing on the conclusions of the June 2025 European Council.
Although the dollar remains the dominant currency, the euro is emerging as the world’s second most important reserve currency, accounting for almost 20% of central bank foreign exchange reserves, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“The euro has not gained market share from dollar, but neither has it lost for the other currencies. So it’s a rather strong and stable picture now. Obviously, given (...) the geopolitical and technological change we are facing, the present international status of the euro is not something we can take for granted”, noted the diplomat.
In a working document prepared by the European Commission, three areas of work were identified for the ministers’ meeting: strengthening the economic and institutional foundations of the Union, deepening financial integration and European payment solutions - in particular the digital euro (see EUROPE 13805/12) - and increasing the international use of the euro in trade, invoicing and public debt issuance.
The Eurogroup will likely share these objectives and it is expected that ministerial discussions will also focus on the consequences that a more attractive currency has on capital flows and exchange rates.
Recommendation for the euro area. The Eurogroup is expected to endorse a slightly revised draft recommendation for the euro area, which advocates a “broadly neutral” fiscal stance for 2026 at euro area level and lists the economic and budgetary priorities for euro area countries (see EUROPE 13771/2).
The text asks these countries to respect the expenditure paths recommended by the Council to preserve the sustainability of their public debt and, at the same time, to “make room” to cope with increased military spending, to strengthen competitiveness and strategic investments and to cope with the budgetary cost of climate change.
The recommendation will be definitively adopted by the European Council in March.
See the revised draft recommendation: https://aeur.eu/f/kqc
Macroeconomic imbalances. Then, meeting in an inclusive format, the Eurogroup will analyse the development of macroeconomic imbalances in the light of the current tense geopolitical context, a theme also chosen by the French Presidency of the G7 countries this year.
Canadian minister, François-Philippe Champagne and Professor Hélène Rey will also be taking part in the discussion.
Group of Six. The German minister, Lars Klingbeil, will inform his counterparts about his initiative to meet informally at the end of January, and then potentially next Monday on the fringes of the Eurogroup, with his counterparts from the other five main euro area economies.
Mr Klingbeil wants to speed up work on capital markets union, strengthening the euro, coordinating defence spending and the supply of critical raw materials, according to Reuters.
While the President of the Eurogroup, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, was not invited to the first informal meeting, this European source described the German initiative as “positive” and potentially “complementary” to the work of the 21 ministers from the euro area countries.
Dinner. It should be noted that, on Monday evening, Mr Pierrakakis has invited his counterparts to a dinner devoted to macroeconomic issues, in the presence of the American economist, Kenneth Roggof, professor at Harvard and former chief economist of the IMF. (Original version in French by Bernard Denuit and Mathieu Bion)