The European Commission has set out proposals for a new €30 billion fund to help euro zone countries recover from sudden financial shocks.
The fund is designed to help stabilise public spending levels and rapid economic recovery in eurozone members where "large asymmetric shocks" have occurred.
The EU-IMF bailout fund had required steep cuts to capital spending in programme countries.
But today's new proposal is seen as helping countries keep capital spending and public investment ticking over, in order to help their economies recover more quickly.
It is widely seen as a response to French President Emmanuel Macron's call for the euro zone to have its own fiscal capacity, although today's proposal fall short of what Mr Macro has in mind.
The new fund would be available via "soft loans" which would include an interest rate subsidy to cover the cost of servicing the loans.
Any country availing of the fund would only be able to access 30% of the total fund, and it would carry certain conditions.
The European Commission also today announced a second proposal to formally establish a new fund designed to reward EU member states that implement the Commission's economic reform programmes.
The fund, which has operated to date on an ad hoc basis, would be folded into the EU's seven year budget.
It would set aside €25 billion to help, for example, newer member states streamline their economies in areas such as tax transparency and tax collection.
A further €2.16 billion would be available for countries seeking to join the euro.
Today's proposals are part of the Commission's next seven year budget, running from 2021-2027.
They must be approved by EU member states and the European Parliament.
The plans are seen as part of the longer term, and controversial, process of completing monetary union, after the financial crisis of 2009-2013 exposed serious flaws in the system.
Launching the plans in Brussels, Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said: "Our proposals will reinforce the resilience of individual economies and the euro area as a whole."
Some of the funding would come from member states, which would be asked to hand over a share of the profits made by national central banks issuing currency.
EU leaders are expected to examine the proposals in more detail at a euro zone summit in June, alongside the main European Council meeting.
"The Government sees this as an important part of the further development of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)," according to an Irish Government spokesman.
The proposals have been launched against the backdrop of the political crisis in Italy, where euro zone rules have proved a bitter battleground over the creation of a eurosceptic and anti-establishment government.
However, it is understood the €30 billion fund would be more typically appropriate for smaller euro zone economies that suffered financial shocks.
The Irish Government is understood to support the idea of the euro zone moving towards having its own budgetary tools.
The new €30 billion fund would differ from the European Stabilisation Mechanism (ESM), which evolved as a backstop fund during the financial crisis.
The ESM is more strictly associated with a bailout programme, which comes with more onerous conditionality.
