After Brexit, EU plans ‘offer you cannot refuse’ to expand euro zone: Moscovici – Reuters

BRUSSELS The European Commission aims to make adopting the euro more attractive to European Union members currently outside the currency bloc, the economics commissioner said on Tuesday, in a bid to make the union more tight-knit after Britain's vote to leave.

The proposals will be unveiled next week in a blueprint on the future of the euro zone, which is part of a wider plan launched by the EU executive on how to revamp the union after Brexit and amid a surge of euroskeptic sentiment.

"We will try to make a framework that is attractive enough, that is like, as they say in the movies, an offer you cannot refuse," Pierre Moscovici told reporters seeking details on his proposals for "completing the Economic and Monetary Union by 2025".

European Union states except Britain and Denmark are obliged to adopt the euro but there is no deadline set for ditching their own currencies.

Moscovici underlined that states should move gradually toward adopting the euro as their currency but he said the Commission has no power and no will to force countries to adopt the euro by a certain date.

Public opinion in EU states outside the euro zone is often against joining the common currency area.

In Poland, 57 percent of interviewees were against the euro, according to a Eurobarometer poll published last December. Opposition was also strong in Britain, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Denmark and Bulgaria, while Hungarians, Croatians and Romanians were mostly favorable to the currency bloc.

Moscovici noted that Brexit meant the euro zone will dominate the EU economy providing a further incentive for countries to adopt the common currency.

(Reporting by Alastair Macdonald and Francesco Guarascio; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump asked lawmakers on Tuesday to cut $3.6 trillion in government spending over the next decade, taking aim at healthcare and food assistance programs for the poor in an austere budget that also boosts the military.

VIENNA OPEC and non-member oil producers could deepen output cuts or extend them for a year at a meeting in Vienna this week, Kuwait said on Wednesday, as they seek to clear a global stocks overhang and prop up the price of crude.

MILAN Any potential fines Fiat Chrysler (FCA) may need to pay to settle a U.S. civil lawsuit over diesel emissions will unlikely top $1 billion, analysts said, adding the case appeared less serious than at larger rival Volkswagen .

Continued here:
After Brexit, EU plans 'offer you cannot refuse' to expand euro zone: Moscovici - Reuters

Related Posts

Comments are closed.