The European Commission published today a Flash Eurobarometer on “Possible obstacles to using the euro in international trade” as perceived by companies in France, Germany, Italy and the UK in the aircraft and shipbuilding, energy, financial services, and electrical and mechanical engineering industries.
The survey confirms that the euro is widely used by European firms in their invoicing practices with nearly eight out of ten companies invoicing more than 75% of their export in euro. Two thirds of the surveyed firms in France, Germany and Italy said they did not use any other currency for export invoicing than the euro. If companies did use other currencies, this was mostly due to client preference and the important role of the US dollar in global finance. Also, firms’ trade invoicing practices appear not to be markedly affected by the European sovereign debt crisis, with around four fifths of the companies saying the crisis had no effect on their use of the euro in trade invoicing.
The Flash Eurobarometer survey was conducted to feed into the Commission report on “Invoicing currencies in International Trade – Drivers and Obstacles to the Use of the Euro” which was discussed by euro area Finance Ministers on 11 February 2016 and is also published today. The report found no obvious evidence of widespread concerns in any economic sector for obstacles at micro-level that could limit the use of the euro for trade invoicing.
