“Joining the euro area is a long-standing goal of Bulgaria and is among the main priorities of the current caretaker government. We continue implementing intensively the National Plan for the Introduction of the Euro in the Republic of Bulgaria”. This is what Deputy Minister of Finance Metodi Metodiev said during the conference on “Euro Adoption – Risks and Challenges. The experience of Croatia”. The event was organised by the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in cooperation with the Bulgarian-Croatian Business Club and the Office for Commercial and Economic Affairs of Bulgaria in Zagreb.

As part of the progress made, the Deputy Minister reported on the finalisation of the draft Law on the Introduction of the Euro in the Republic of Bulgaria which had already received positive opinions from the European Commission and the European Central Bank. The experts had been working on the draft for the last year and a half and they had drawn on the experience of Croatia for its preparation. It had been uploaded for public consultation. A wide range of stakeholders had been consulted, including all seven working groups of the Coordination Council for Preparation of the Republic of Bulgaria for Euro Area Membership, the businesses and the non-governmental sector. The draft law had been sent for inter-institutional coordination.  “We expect that the Law will be adopted by the Council of Ministers before the end of the term of office of the current caretaker government and that it will be sent directly to the newly established Parliament in order to launch discussions thereunder. And I truly believe that, in terms of time, it is quite possible for it to be adopted by the National Assembly by the end of the summer”, Mr. Metodiev explained.

 In terms of fulfilling the Maastricht criteria, the Republic of Bulgaria meets three of the four nominal criteria. With the adoption of the new Law on the Bulgarian National Bank at the beginning of this year, all the findings of the previous Convergence Reports of the European Commission and the European Central Bank regarding the achievement of full compliance with the Eurosystem legislation have been addressed.

At this stage, the only criterion that remains a challenge for the country is that of price stability. Domestic inflation is currently in a downward trend.  As Mr. Metodiev explained, according to the preliminary estimates of the Ministry of Finance, using the latest April data, this is likely to happen before the end of 2024. Then Bulgaria could use the possibility foreseen in the EU treaties to request an extraordinary assessment.