20.02.2023

“Bulgaria will not submit a convergence report request to the European Commission and the European Central Bank at the end of February as we have not fulfilled the commitments for entering the Exchange Rate Mechanism II and we do not meet the inflation criterion”. This was announced by the Minister of Finance Rositza Velkova-Jeleva. According to her, despite the efforts made by the caretaker government to accelerate the process of preparation for adoption of the euro in the Republic of Bulgaria with the target date of 1 January 2024, during the talks in Brussels at the beginning of this week our European partners took note that there was considerable lagging behind with the legislative part related to the failure to adopt the necessary amendments in several laws which had been prepared and submitted by the caretaker government to the National Assembly but were passed at first hearing only. These are the amendments to the Insurance Code, the Measures Against Money Laundering Law and the Commerce Law in the field of insolvency, the deliberations for which in the relevant committees and in plenary were followed closely by the European partners. “The other criterion which we do not meet is the inflation which is due to both external and internal factors and requires certain time to accommodate it within the reference value”, the Minister added.

“Bulgaria has agreed to submit a convergence report request when it fulfils its commitments and adopts the necessary laws which the caretaker government will submit to the national Assembly, including the amendments to the BNB Law, when we meet the inflation criterion and when we have a stable fiscal outlook for the 2023-2026 period”, Ms. Velkova-Jeleva pointed out. She specified that the caretaker government makes efforts to curb the inflationary pressure and said that she expected the parliament to vote the key legislative amendments by priority. “A task force with experts from the Ministry of Finance and the European Commission has been formed to monitor the monthly inflation data upon their announcement and to make calculations and forecasts for the following months”, the Minister announced. “If we cover the criteria at the end of June or July, we can immediately submit a report request instead of waiting for the regular one”, Ms. Velkova-Jeleva said. She assured that the Bulgarian institutions continued working intensively within their remit on the technical preparation for adoption of the euro.