Juncker wants bigger global role for euro

STRASBOURG, Sept 12 (Reuters): European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called on Wednesday for the European Union to promote the euro as a global currency to challenge the US dollar.

"We must do more to allow our single currency to play its full role on the international scene," Juncker told the European Parliament in Strasbourg as he presented his annual programme.

"It is absurd that Europe pays for 80 per cent of its energy import bill - worth 300 billion euros a year - in US dollars when only roughly two per cent of our energy imports come from the United States," he said.

"It is absurd that European companies buy European planes in dollars instead of euro," he added.

While Norway prices its substantial supplies to the EU in euros, an EU official said, other countries use dollars.

Among the most important of these are Gulf states and Russia.