BERLIN: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde on Monday said the global economic order backed by the US dollar was `fracturing` and made a pitch for the euro as a global reserve currency.

`The global economy thrived on a foundation of openness and multilateralism underpinned by US leadership,` Lagarde said in a speech at the Hertie School in Berlin.

Washington`s support for a rules-based international system and the dollar as a reserve currency had `set the stage for trade to flourish and finance to expand`.

The persistence of that US-led economic order over the past 80 years had `prove d immensely beneficial to the European Union`.

`But today it is fracturing,` she said in an apparent reference to global trade tensions fuelled by US President Donald Trump`s threat to impose sweeping tariffs on key partners.

The disintegration of the global economic order would `pose risks for Europe`, Lagarde said.-AFP