Bulgarian parliament obliges cabinet to speed up eurozone entry – EURACTIV.com

Parliament obliged the Council of Ministers, in coordination with the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) to speed up the consultations and negotiations with the institutions and countries of the Eurozone to ensure the Euro replaces the Lev from January 2024.

This decision was proposed by GERB, the party that won the last elections but failed to have a majority to form a government. While the country is ruled by the caretaker government, GERB is trying to form a government though its chances of success remain slim.

According to the decision calling for the acceleration of eurozone negotiations,  Bulgaria will accept the euro at the rate at which the lev is now tied to it – 1.95583.

Before the decision was adopted, lawmakers heard the governor of the Bulgarian National Bank, Dimitar Radev who was present at the request of the Bulgarian socialist party, like Vazrazhdane and Bulgarian Rise – both key parties to forming a government – fiercely oppose Bulgaria’s entry into the eurozone.

Yet Radev told MPs the political crisis in Bulgaria is currently hindering the process of joining the eurozone, noting that the Eurozone issue is political rather than expert.

According to him, the real question is whether Bulgaria should remain anchored for an indefinitely long time in the periphery of Europe with poverty, and corruption, or whether this should change with the acceleration of Bulgaria towards the eurozone.

In his speech, Radev called on MPs to focus on solving the political crisis.

“One of the Eurozone factors told me that he is seeing new people periodically on Eurozone issues. With a caretaker government, the work for the Eurozone cannot be done,” he warned them. The same applies to the official leadership of the BNB, he added, referring to his own expired mandate. The governor of the BNB is elected by the parliament.

“The lack of a regular government is a serious problem for progress on accession. For this reason, we miss important indicative deadlines one after another,” continued Radev, citing Bulgaria being a month and a half behind schedule for signing the memorandum on the production of national euro coins as an example.

Radev also emphasised that the door to the eurozone is not always open, highlighting that Bulgaria’s last negotiations were 10 years ago.

“The door opens intermittently, it doesn’t stay open all the time. The previous cycle we missed was 10 years ago, now, with diminishing chances of success, we have the opportunity to continue the accession process. The risk is that this process will be terminated,” Radev pointed out.

“Croatia entered a year after us, copying everything we had prepared. The only difference was that Croatia demonstrated a very strong political commitment to this topic and now it is expected to join as early as 1 January 2023. We have a serious delay of a period of 18 months, but it comes because of political decision-making,” said Radev.

According to Radev, inflation is the only risk criterion for Bulgaria’s entry into the Eurozone as of 1 January 2024. It is important what the inflation will be on the date it will be measured – in this case, 30 April, if…