MNI POLICY: EC Moots Swap Lines In Trade Deals To Boost Euro

The European Commission moots the idea of including euro swap lines in trade deals with third countries in a paper on how to promote the international role of the euro which will be discussed by euro area finance ministers on Feb 16 in Brussels, MNI understands.

The paper also discusses how to promote more euro stablecoins and tokenised deposits without undermining financial stability as well as an outreach programme to industries to promote invoicing and product pricing in euros.

It examines how the European Stability Mechanism - which was set up as an intergovernmental body - might be more formally integrated into EU institutions, so that its debt might be included in the Commission's unified funding programme and enhance the liquidity of EC bonds. 

Top EU officials, like European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, have seized on the euro's strength against the dollar to promote a more global role for the currency, though officials concede that displacing the U.S. currency in sensitive and strategic sectors like energy pricing will be difficult. (See MNI INTERVIEW: Euro Stablecoins Or Dollar Colony - Bini Smaghi)