Bulgaria meets all criteria, only inflation remains for Eurozone membership according to regular convergence reports for 2024 .of the European Commission and the European Central Bank.
It is expected by the end of the year that it will be covered as a criterion and our country will request an extraordinary report.
This was announced by the BNB, BGNES reported.
Today the European Commission (EC) and the European Central Bank (ECB) published the Convergence Reports for 2024, in which they present their assessment of the progress towards the euro area made by the six member states obliged to adopt the euro: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic , Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden. Convergence reports are published every two years or when there is a special request from a member state to assess its readiness to join the euro area, as was the case with Latvia in 2013.
Bulgaria meets all criteria, only inflation remains for Eurozone membership
according to the regular convergence reports for 2024 of the European Commission and the European Central Bank. Our country fulfills three of the four numerical criteria for membership, namely: the one for the stability of public finances (budget balance and public debt), for the exchange rate and for the long-term interest rate. Bulgaria does not only fulfill the price stability criterion, as inflation is expected to decrease in the coming months, which would allow Bulgaria to meet the last challenge to its membership in the Eurozone. It is expected that this criterion will be met by the end of the year.
The budget balance in 2023 is negative in the amount of 1.9% of GDP with a defined limit for the deficit of the “State Government” to 3% of GDP, and the ratio of gross public debt to GDP of 23.1% is significantly below the reference value of 60%, placing us in second place among the EU countries with the lowest public indebtedness. The average long-term interest rate of Bulgaria for the period March 2023 – April 2024 is 4% and is also below the reference value of 5.5%.
Regarding the exchange rate dynamics criterion from July 10, 2020, the Bulgarian lev participates in the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System – Currency Mechanism II (CM II), to which the country has joined, keeping the currency board operating in the country as a unilateral commitment with an official exchange rate of BGN 1.95583 per one euro and has not shown any deviation within the reference period. Our country is the only one of the considered countries that meets this criterion.
The reports note that
of the six countries considered, only the legislation of Bulgaria can be considered compatible with EU law
subject to the conditions and interpretations specified in the reports. In the context of our full membership in the Eurozone, Bulgaria should continue its steps towards ensuring a stable and predictable business environment and institutional framework for achieving sustainable convergence with the Eurozone countries.
From what was presented by the EC and the ECB in the reports, it can be concluded that Bulgaria is the most advanced of all six countries on its path to the introduction of the euro and has made significant progress in fulfilling the convergence criteria.
The Bulgarian authorities will continue to actively work towards the fulfillment of all the criteria for membership in the Eurozone,
as well as to improve the business environment and the institutional framework to achieve sustainable convergence with the Eurozone. Upon meeting all the criteria for membership, which is expected to be fulfilled at the end of the year, our country will request the preparation of extraordinary convergent reports from the European Commission and the European Central Bank, on the basis of which a decision on the date can be made as soon as possible of Bulgaria's membership in the Eurozone.