EN
The introduction of the euro enabled a reliable institutionalization of economic co-operation between the European Union member states that goes beyond monetary policy. This then enabled a limitation of the political conflict within the economic policy, increasing international reliability of the Union’s mechanism that creates the essence of monetary policy. As a result, we can observe a process of a slow but constant rise of the international role of the euro even in the conditions determined by the global financial crisis. These conditions, however, revealed a significant governing bodies’ sensitivity causing a slow-down in the increase in the reserves held in the euro in comparison to the reserves in the U.S. dollar.