Is it not absurd that Europe pays 300 billion euros a year in US dollars while importing only 2% of its energy imports from the U.S.?

On Wednesday, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called on the European Union to promote the euro as a global currency as a challenge to the dominance of the U.S. dollar.

“We must do more to allow our single currency to play its full role on the international scene,” told Juncker to the European Parliament in Strasbourg while presenting his annual programme. “It is absurd that Europe pays for 80 percent of its energy import bill – worth 300 billion euros a year – in U.S. dollars when only roughly 2 percent of our energy imports come from the United States.”

He went on to add, “It is absurd that European companies buy European planes in dollars instead of euro.”

Norway is one of the few countries which prices its supplies to the EU in euros, said an official from the EU. Other countries, including countries in the Gulf and Russia, use the greenback.

“The euro must become the face and the instrument of a new, more sovereign Europe,” said Juncker while calling the EU to exert more influence internationally with a unified stance and become a global player.

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