On Friday, March 29, 2024, a worker has a shop in Sofia, Bulgaria, Bulgarian Lev banknotes in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Oliver Bunic/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Bulgaria secured the green light on Wednesday to join the euro zone, which means that the block could soon grow from 20 to 21 members.
The European Commission and the European Central Bank both examined that the country met the requirements for the only currency from next year.
“This positive evaluation of Convergence Bulgaria the way to introduce the euro on January 1, 2026 and become the 21st EU member state that joins the Euro region,” said Philip Lane, member of the ECB board, in a press release.
The European Commission described the evaluation in a statement as “a critical and historical step on the trip to Bulgaria to the euro adoption”.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, congratulated the country and told the decision that the decision would mean “more investments and trading in Euro bidding partners as well as more stability and prosperity for the Bulgarian people”.
“Bulgaria will also take its lawful place in the design of Euro area decisions,” she added in a social media post.
This marks a shift compared to the report of last yearSWhich came to the conclusion that Sofia did not meet the so -called convergence criteria in order to take over the currency on the grounds that the country's inflation rate was too high.
One of the obstacles to the intersection was inflation. According to Statistics Agency Eurostat, the harmonized consumer price index in Bulgaria, which is comparable in European countries, was 2.8%.
The price stability is only one of the requirements that a country has to meet in order to join the euro zone and thus the European Central Bank. Others include restrictions on the size of the state deficit and the debt rate of a country, its average nominal long -term interest rate and its exchange rate stability.
There is also a legal requirement that covers the independence of the central bank.
Bulgaria joined the European Union in 2007 and undertook to join the euro zone at that time and to give up the Bulgarian LEV as an official currency. According to the European Union, around 341 million people use the euro in the currently 20 euro zone countries. The ECB says that over 29 billion euros bank grades with a value of more than 1.5 trillion euros (1.7 trillion US dollars) are in circulation.
One euro corresponds to 1.96 Lev, a sentence when Bulgaria became part of the board of directors that anchor the currencies.
There are mixed settings to join the euro in Bulgaria. A survey published by the EU last year suggested that 49% of the public were that the euro block became part of the euro block. Political opinion is also divided, with several nationalist parties and the country's president work for it, while Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov is supported.
The European Commission stated that in addition to its assessment at the beginning of next year, it also said goodbye to a decision by the Council and the provisions of the Council acceptance for the euro adoption in Bulgaria. The EU Council has the last word about countries that join the euro zone.
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