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The euro is the second most important currency in the world, but it remains far behind the dollar as a reserve and exchange currency. Under what conditions could it become a genuine instrument of European power and political autonomy?
The euro will only become a true instrument of sovereignty if Europe is willing to provide it with the means, which requires crossing several structural steps.
First, dedollarisation: too large a share of our exchanges relies on the dollar, even in our payment infrastructures, which are American. This is no longer viable at a time when Washington uses its currency and its companies for geopolitical pressure.
Next, we must guarantee a Union of capital markets to strengthen our strategic autonomy, which passes through the deepening of our single market.
Finally, the key question remains: issuing a safe asset capable of competing with US Treasuries. This is precisely what the euro lacks today to establish itself as a global reserve currency: a sovereign, liquid and credible underlying asset, commensurate with the political ambition we assign to it. I am of course aligned with Christine Lagarde on this point.
These objectives are now clearly identified. But beyond their definition, does the Union have a clear strategy to achieve them?
Unlike the Americans and the Chinese, Europeans struggle to sketch an overarching doctrine and even more to implement it.
The institution that should be at the origin of this broad guidance is the European Central Bank. Yet, due to treaties, regulations, and limitations in its power, it struggles to advance on a number of topics. We lack an overall vision and a venue for debate.
The euro will become a true instrument of sovereignty only if Europe commits to giving itself the means to do so.
Aurore Lalucq
Indeed, as Members of the European Parliament, this is a topic we address in the Parliament; there is a Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs that I chair. Nevertheless, it seems that the crucial question of money has long been neglected by the European Council, or even the Commission. Not to mention the fault lines — between right and left, between Member States — that feed long-running debates: on the safe asset, to which I dedicated my report on the Union of Capital Markets, or on the Banking Union, still not completed.
But gradually, Finance Ministers are taking up these subjects: they consider the euro’s international role, an idea until very recently unthinkable, and speak of a safe asset or common indebtedness, as exemplified by Spanish minister Carlos Cuerpo.
This absence of European doctrine contrasts with Washington’s stance. In a report published on June 2, 2026, the European Central Bank also shows that the euro did not benefit that much from the economic policy, often deemed erratic, of the Trump administration. How do you analyze the American monetary strategy?
I would say that the American strategy is more coherent than it appears: it is less erratic than openly aggressive. Where there once prevailed a system of guarded chasings that restrained currency competition, there is now a real will to attack the euro, including on our soil, by flooding it with American stablecoins.
What worries me most is that the current US administration does not seek so much the dollarization of the world as the questioning of the monetary institution itself. We are witnessing the return of private currencies and the privatization of seigniorage.
The current American administration does not seek so much the dollarization of the world as the questioning of the monetary institution itself.
Aurore Lalucq
In this geopolitical context, marked by rising tensions, the euro must reaffirm its role as a reliable and powerful currency on the international stage. A question that did not arise a few years ago, but threats make it more urgent.
You place the stablecoin at the heart of this offensive. Isn’t it primarily a means of stimulating dollar demand by giving it new momentum on a global scale?
The Trump administration’s dollar policy is full of contradictions. On the one hand, Treasury officials say they want to lower its external value — the exchange rate. On the other, they seek, through the stablecoin, to increase demand for the American currency and for Treasuries — which should, on the contrary, cause it to appreciate.
Where there is coherence, however, is in the systematic attacks by the Trump administration against what unites. Money is one example: it unites beyond national and cultural differences.
Before being an instrument, a means of payment or exchange, or a stable value, money is first defined as a political institution. As Michel Aglietta showed, it rests on “trust and violence,” on a solid and reliable institutional system, and can be subjected to brutal attacks.
And it is precisely this political dimension that makes it a target: by weakening confidence in competing currencies — especially the euro — and the institutions they represent, the United States seeks to impose a form of monetary governance.
The Union should not merely be seen as a bastion of resistance to American imperialism: it must be more offensive, to assert itself.
Aurore Lalucq
However, if the euro is so strong and resists pressure, it is because legislation, namely the one applied and guaranteed by the European Central Bank, gives it legitimacy. It is no accident that the history of the euro is also a matter of symbols, political symbols. Therefore, it is not only our means of payment that is at stake, but political values and a constitutive element of European construction, to which the Europeans are attached.
Now, one thing is certain: the Union should not only be a fortress of resistance to American imperialism, it should be more offensive, assert itself. We return to the euro’s international role. In my view, the latter is less economic than political and geopolitical in nature.
Among the tools of this monetary power are currency swaps and liquidity lines, which Washington as well as Beijing use extensively. Should the ECB be more ambitious in this area?
Currency swaps are central to the American and Chinese strategies today. The principle is fairly simple: by offering liquidity lines to partner central banks, you weave dependencies that permanently reinforce the international status of a currency.
The question of swaps is thus crucial, but it requires the euro area to strengthen itself, hence the ECB’s hesitations. Once strong, once determined to play its geopolitical role, the ECB could indeed participate in this expansion.
Autonomy also passes through payment infrastructures. Is that where the digital euro comes into play for you?
What is called the digital euro is not only the central bank money that will circulate, but also the infrastructure on which it will be embedded.
Today, the infrastructures we use in Europe are almost all American, with a few exceptions such as Carte bancaire in France, Girocard in Germany, or Bancontact in Belgium. This results in a dependence and vulnerabilities that are increasingly unacceptable and cannot be ignored. It was enough for Donald Trump to express his displeasure at certain judges and magistrates of the International Criminal Court for them to be deprived of all means of payment, like Nicolas Guillou, who suddenly saw his accounts closed and his cards blocked by Visa, Mastercard and PayPal.
It is also very difficult for private companies, even large ones, to do without these American networks: those trying to free themselves face either the sale of their alternative solutions or commercial reprisals.
It is precisely to respond to these technical, commercial and above all geopolitical vulnerabilities that the digital euro, a public currency, makes sense. Whoever attacks the digital euro attacks the euro and the Union itself. It is therefore essential to have public, protected payment rails that cannot be sold.
In the face of these private currencies, what use of stablecoins is possible in Europe? The ECB seems to harden its stance toward them. How does MiCAR regulation, which you have followed closely, fit into this?
Stablecoins will never substitute for the digital euro. They are two different things. While cash payments continue to decline in favor of digital payments, it is our responsibility to regulate private solutions that are increasingly numerous. We must give public money, its digital framework, which is public too. This is the idea that should be at the heart of the digital euro.
The stablecoin cannot serve as public money or as a public monetary architecture. Not only because its origin is private, but also because it lacks transparency and stability. The stablecoin is more of a fashion phenomenon. It furthermore endangers our monetary sovereignty, promotes illicit finance and money laundering, and weakens consumers, exposed to technological failures and cyberattacks. Yet a good currency is first a stable store of value.
Thus, how can we explain that Circle, the American stablecoin giant, obtained in France the license to issue stablecoins in dollars in Europe?
I deeply regret this licensing.
This trend toward fungibility transposed into the field of stablecoins, i.e., the fact that a token issued in the United States can enjoy an equivalence, and thus interchangeability, with a token issued in Europe, seems very dangerous to me.
We are in the process of creating a new dependence, a new American trap, similar in its aim to Trump’s tariffs.
Aurore Lalucq
It is a source of legislative confusion. And since there are no redemption fees in Europe, unlike the United States, we risk importing financial instability.
In other words, it’s a new dependence we are creating, a new American trap, similar in its aim to Trump’s tariffs.
How to explain this legal ambiguity surrounding stablecoins and their “fungibility” between tokens issued in Europe and those issued in the United States? There seem to be differences of appreciation between the ECB, the Commission and among Member States.
The European Central Bank is very clear on this, and it is not the only one: technically and legally, the risks linked to fungibility are well identified. What creates the confusion is a political agenda. As for the legislation, it is also very clear: it forbids fungibility between tokens issued in Europe and those issued by other jurisdictions, such as the United States. Some players prefer to claim there is room for interpretation, in the name of pseudo-competitiveness or innovation, but in reality what they do is expose our markets to instabilities that we know very well.
But beyond who holds sway over the regulatory framework, we must call on everyone’s responsibility. We are targeted by the American administration, which seeks to destabilize our institutions and our currency. Weakening our markets by allowing regulatory gaps to propagate US stablecoins can only multiply the risks.