Behind an imposing wooden desk in Sofia, in a complex that once housed a statue of Lenin, the man who chairs the 20-member group of eurozone finance ministers chooses his words carefully.
“I am firmly convinced that Bulgaria will join the eurozone in 2025. The question is when your country will introduce the euro as its currency. And not whether,” said Paschal Donohoe, president of the Eurogroup.
Surrounded by the country’s Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, his presence carries great European political weight. A month later, the coalition government collapsed and three ministers were removed from office. Donohoe’s visit, aimed at bolstering Bulgaria’s faltering bid to become the 21st country to use the euro, turned out to be ill-timed.
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Experts and politicians who spoke to POLITICO are convinced that the target date of January 1, 2025 will not be met – not only because of political turmoil in Bulgaria, but also because of continued inflation and a lack of public support.
“We are in the middle of a political crisis,” said Bulgarian socialist MEP Petar Vitanov. That would make it “impossible” for the country to join the eurozone by the start of the year. Its sixth national election since 2021 will be held in June.
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“We really don’t know what the next government will be and whether this will be one of its priorities,” he said.
Even before the government fell, the country was giving signals that it might miss the planned entry date. Then-Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov said in January that the target was “not sacred”. Bulgaria originally intended to join the single currency at the beginning of 2024, but last year had to postpone this goal by 1 year because it did not yet meet the criteria for joining.
According to Cintia Alcidi, senior research fellow at the Brussels-based think tank CEPS, “at the earliest” January 2026 would be more realistic given the technical challenges of moving to the national currency.
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Several political leaders, including the country’s central bank governor, have raised the prospect of entry in mid-2025 if it cannot get in by the January date – hence Donohoe’s careful wording that he expects membership “in 2025”.
But officials and experts involved in the technical aspects of the accession told POLITICO that joining in the middle of the year would be atypical. Countries usually join at the beginning of the year for administrative reasons.
Bulgarian MEP Eva Maydel of the centre-right EPP group said she was “optimistic about a 2025 accession date”, adding that “it could be January 1, it could be later”.
Affected by rising prices
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Joining the eurozone is a typically EU arcane process where countries are assessed by the European Central Bank before EU finance ministers, MEPs and heads of government discuss the matter.
The “convergence criteria” a country must meet to qualify include a stable exchange rate, meeting government deficit and debt ratio targets and bringing national legislation into line with EU law.
The next ECB report on Bulgaria, which will determine whether it is ready to join, is expected before the summer.
Inflation remains a problem. In order to join, Bulgaria needs an average inflation rate of no more than 1.5 percent. above the level of the three “best performing” EU countries – a vague category that creates a gray area about the exact amount of inflation needed. The most recent country to join the EU, Croatia in 2023, benefited from selective data selection when it was allowed to join despite the higher rate.
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The only obstacle facing Bulgaria is the inflation criterion,” says Zholt Darvash, senior research fellow at the Brussels-based economic think tank Bruegel. “It is in a good budgetary position – low public debts, budget deficits under control.”
The country’s current inflation forecast of 2.9% in 2025 “suggests that Bulgaria could join in 2026,” says Darvas. He added that there was “some room for manoeuvre” over whether the same gray area that allowed Croatia to join in 2023 could be used to shorten Bulgaria’s accession deadline, but added that this “must to be substantiated’.
In theory, Sofia will request a new convergence report from the ECB towards the end of this year, which will have a low enough inflation rate to be able to join in mid-2025. But in practice, EU officials who will be involved in the technical process, question whether this is feasible.
Russian disinformation
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Among Bulgaria’s political class, eurozone membership is an easy sell. But the public is proving more difficult to convince.
In a Eurobarometer survey last year, Bulgarians expressed lower-than-average support for accession and higher-than-average concern about issues such as price-fixing during the transition.
Senior EU officials told Politico that Russian-sponsored disinformation contributed to this unpopularity.
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“I still believe that the majority of Bulgarians would prefer to be part of the Eurozone,” says MEP Vitanov. “Here I am not only blaming Russian propaganda. Yes, it exists. But in general, those who are lagging behind are the Bulgarian politicians.”
Aside from the results of taming inflation, Bulgaria is in a relatively strong position to join the eurozone, several experts and officials said.
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The country’s currency, the lev, has been pegged to the euro since 1999, and Bulgaria has been in the EU’s banking union since 2020 – steps that MEP Eva Meidel said showed a “very, very clear commitment” to joining.
Concerns about Bulgaria’s accession timetable have not stopped senior EU officials like Donohoe from continuing to beat the drum.
Last month, the country received approval from eurozone countries when their heads of government praised Bulgaria’s progress.
But despite the EU’s sustained public support for the January 2025 target, senior officials admit it almost certainly won’t happen. As one of them says: “It’s off!”.
