The European Commission is likely to give Bulgaria the green light on June 4 to adopt the euro currency from the start of 2026, several euro zone officials said, making Bulgaria the 21st country to join the single currency area.
The Commission will publish a "convergence report" next Wednesday on whether Bulgaria meets the criteria to adopt the euro, now used by 347 million Europeans in 20 countries.
Three senior euro zone officials said they expected the Commission report to be positive for Bulgaria, which has been striving to switch its lev currency to the euro ever since it joined the European Union in 2007.
Becoming a member of the euro zone, apart from using euro notes and coins, also means a seat at the European Central Bank's rate-setting Governing Council. The ECB will issue its own assessment on June 4 whether it thinks the country is ready, and if its central bank is independent.
It is the Commission's view that is decisive, however.
A positive recommendation from the EU executive arm would mean that EU finance ministers would endorse it and fix the conversion exchange rate for the Bulgarian lev into the euro in July, leaving the rest of the year for the country to technically prepare for the transition.
MEETING THE CRITERIA
For a positive recommendation, Bulgaria has to meet the inflation criterion, which says that the euro-candidate cannot have consumer inflation higher than 1.5 percentage points above the three best EU performers.
In April, the best performers were France with 0.9%, Cyprus with 1.4% and Denmark with 1.5%, which put Bulgaria with its 2.8% just within the limit.
The euro candidate country also cannot be under the EU's disciplinary budget procedure for running a deficit in excess of 3% of GDP. Bulgaria meets this criterion with a budget deficit of 3.0% in 2024 and 2.8% expected in 2025.
The country's public debt of 24.1% of GDP in 2024 and 25.1% expected in 2025 is well below the maximum level of 60%, and its long-term interest rate on bonds is well within the 2 percentage point margin above the rate at which the three best inflation performers borrow.
Finally, the euro candidate country has to prove it has a stable exchange rate by staying within a 15% margin on either side of a central parity rate in the Exchange Rate Mechanism II.
Bulgaria has been running a currency board that fixed the lev to the euro at 1.95583 since the start of the euro currency in 1999.
Bulgaria's euro adoption will come three years after the last euro zone expansion, when Croatia joined the single currency grouping at the start of 2023.
The Commission will also look at whether Bulgaria's economy and markets are integrated with the rest of the EU, as well as the trends in the country's balance of payments.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday dismissed a push by some Israeli lawmakers to advance annexation of the occupied West Bank, saying Israel was ...
European Union leaders on Thursday agreed to meet Ukraine’s urgent financial needs for the next two years but stopped short of formally backing the ...
Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Thursday that a suspension of U.S. aid would make little difference to his country, although reductions in m...
U.S. President Donald Trump is set to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping next week during a visit to Asia, the White House confirmed on Thursday, endin...
U.S. border czar says fentanyl should be considered a WMD....
Bulgaria has confirmed its readiness to facilitate a potential summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump in Budapest by permitting Putin's aircraft to traverse its airspace.
Bulgarian authorities have detained Igor Grechushkin, the Russian owner of a cargo ship linked to the ammonium nitrate at the heart of the 2020 Beirut port explosion, Lebanese judicial officials said.
Belgium has approved the transfer of four decommissioned minehunters to Bulgaria under a contract worth €24 million (over $28 million).
The EU has accused Russia of jamming the GPS signal on an aircraft carrying the European commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday.
At least 69 people have died and almost 150 injured following a powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Cebu City in the central Visayas region of the Philippines, officials said, making it one of the country’s deadliest disasters this year.
A tsunami threat was issued in Chile after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck the Drake Passage on Friday. The epicenter was located 135 miles south of Puerto Williams on the north coast of Navarino Island.
The war in Ukraine has reached a strategic impasse, and it seems that the conflict will not be solved by military means. This creates a path toward one of two alternatives: either a “frozen” phase that can last indefinitely or a quest for a durable political regulation.
A shooting in Nice, southeastern France, left two people dead and five injured on Friday, authorities said.
Snapchat will start charging users who store more than 5GB of photos and videos in its Memories feature, prompting backlash from long-time users.
Türkiye has emerged as Europe’s largest steel producer and the world’s seventh largest in the first eight months of 2025, producing 36.9 million tonnes last year, according to sector officials.
Germany’s Adidas increased its full-year profit guidance, saying it managed to cushion some of the extra expenses resulting from higher U.S. tariffs.
Germany’s Adidas on Tuesday raised its full-year operating profit forecast, saying it had successfully offset part of the additional costs caused by higher U.S. tariffs.
New Zealand's annual inflation accelerated in the third quarter, reaching 3.0%, which aligns with analysts' expectations and is at the upper end of the central bank's target range, according to official data released on Monday.
On Sunday, the Netherlands' Economy Minister, Vincent Karremans, stated that he expects to meet with a Chinese government official in the coming days to discuss how to resolve the standoff over Nexperia NV, a computer chip maker whose issues are threatening global automotive supply chains.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment