The way in which the eurozone is governed would be radically altered if plans unveiled by the European Commission on Wednesday come to fruition.

Under the proposals, the EU’s informal gathering of eurozone finance ministers — the Eurogroup — could grow in stature to promote further integration among the 19 countries that use the single currency.

The plans call for merging the jobs of president of the Eurogroup and the European commissioner responsible for the economic and monetary union (EMU). That person would in effect (and perhaps even in title) be an EU finance minister.

A favored option in the Commission’s Berlaymont headquarters is creating a post that mirrors Federica Mogherini’s EU foreign affairs role. Instead of being an unpaid and scarcely resourced presidency, the Eurogroup would instead be run by someone with a foot in each of the Commission and Council camps.

However, some aspects of the plan were almost immediately described as being "for the trash can only."

The proposal was contained in a 40-page “reflection paper” on the future of the EMU that aims to bring Europe's richer and poorer nations closer together by a self-imposed deadline of 2025.

It's part of Brussels’ attempts to build on a “Future of Europe” white paper released earlier this year and comes hot on the heels of Emmanuel Macron's election as French president. Macron has called for a eurozone-specific budget managed by a eurozone finance minister.

The Commission's plan says the Eurogroup could morph from an unofficial — and critics say overly secretive — forum that meets on a monthly basis into an institutionalized body that could be held accountable for decisions that affect the eurozone.

The Eurogroup’s work could even get support from “a euro area treasury” that “would be tasked with preparing decisions and executing them,” the Commission proposed, while “decision-making would be attributed to the Eurogroup.”

The two bodies would be intrinsically linked “under an EU finance minister, who would also be chair of the Eurogroup.”

Meanwhile, according to Pierre Moscovici, the Commission’s economic and financial affairs czar, the European Parliament should have the power to demand hearings with the Eurogroup’s president to explain the decisions that eurozone finance ministers reach behind closed doors.

“We need more accountability there … starting with the Eurogroup,” Moscovici said while unveiling the Commission's plans.

The Parliament has no legal right to demand a testimony from the likes of Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who has the power to accept or decline invitations to plenary debates. The Eurogroup has negotiated multiple sovereign bailouts since the eurozone crisis — a topic of great interest to citizens of the 19-country bloc.

That lack of power became evident in April. Dijsselbloem declined the Parliament’s offer to discuss progress on Greece’s bailout package and the controversial comments he made in an interview with a German newspaper that seemed to criticize the spending habits of Southern Europeans.

But such snubs could soon be a thing of the past if the Commission’s suggestion gets the support needed from eurozone leaders.

“The formalization” of such a proposal could happen “by the end of next year,” Moscovici said. If successful, “an agreement on the democratic accountability of the euro area” could be “signed … in time for the next European Parliament elections in June 2019.”

Moscovici's Commission colleague Valdis Dombrovskis said, "we shouldn’t be waiting on another crisis, but rather move forward” with strengthening the EMU.

The ideas didn't go down well with everyone. Markus Ferber, a German conservative MEP and senior member of the Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, said, "We do not need any new institutions, any new funds and any new competences on the European level."

Diversifying banks' investment portfolios has become an increasingly popular idea within the Commission.

He added that "real progress would be to see existing agreements such as the Stability and Growth Pact being actually implemented — that would result in true and sustainable convergence ... So-called European Safe Bonds are a thinly veiled attempt to prepare the way for full-fledged common debt liability. This idea is for the trash can only. ”

The Commission's plans for the future of the eurozone indeed go further than remodeling the Eurogroup.

It says a eurozone treasury could be in charge of coordinating what it calls a “European Safe Asset” — a financial product that would bring together sovereign debts from eurozone countries and sell them to investors. It would be the eurozone's attempt to create a product similar to a U.S. Treasury bond and would, the Commission said, "deliver tangible benefits by increasing the diversification of banks’ balance sheets and by fostering private-sector risk sharing.”

Diversifying banks' investment portfolios has become an increasingly popular idea within the Commission, which has become concerned about European lenders' habit of buying up large quantities of sovereign debt.

Other ideas in the Commission's plan include a fund to absorb economic shocks across the eurozone. The Commission said such a financial instrument should be in place by 2025 "at the latest."

The Commission also called for a strong and united front on the global stage, especially at the International Monetary Fund, at which the “euro area is still not represented as one.”

“This fragmented voice means the euro area is punching significantly below its political and economic weight as each member state speaks individually,” the document said.

Improving the balance of power on the IMF executive board could help stave off future imbalances of influence. But that’s not enough for the Commission, which earlier this year even suggested creating a European equivalent to the Washington-based IMF — a move backed by Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany's powerful finance minister.