EU single currency reform won’t be ‘perfect’: Moscovici

PARIS – Agence France-Presse

EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici has said that he does not expect a “perfect” accord on reforming the single currency at an EU summit in June.

“We won’t get everything, we won’t have a perfect accord, but if there is progress on crisis management, the ability to combat shocks... we will have made a great step forward,” he told French radio RFI on Feb. 18 on the eve of a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels.

As the 19-nation currency area finally emerges from years of crisis, there is agreement in many eurozone capitals that it must be buttressed to better weather future economic storms - but not all countries agree on how best to do it.

Moscovici said a “real window of opportunity” opened last year with the election of reformist President Emmanuel Macron.

The French leader has set out an ambitious vision for European reforms, including having a separate eurozone budget and finance minister.

But the window “will probably close” in the run-up to next year’s European Parliament elections, Moscovici said.

The left-right “grand coalition” reached in EU powerhouse Germany last week between Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Social Democrats is cautiously supportive of Macron’s reform proposals.