January 2026 “at the earliest” would be more realistic given the technical challenges of switching national currencies, according to Cinzia Alcidi, senior research fellow at the Brussels-based CEPS institute
High inflation and wavering public support – partly due to Russian disinformation – mean the country will almost certainly miss its 2025 accession target.
This is what the Brussels publication “Politico” reports in an article entitled “Bulgaria cannot enter the Eurozone in January. This is why”.
The next regular report of the European Central Bank, which will describe the country’s readiness to join the single currency, is expected by the end of spring. The last regular government said it would ask for a separate readiness assessment later in a bid to get approval for its target date of January 1, 2025.
But author Catherine Carlson begins with a situation from Sofia that points to the most likely reason for the doubts:
“I am strongly convinced that Bulgaria will join the Eurozone in 2025,” said Pascal Donahue (Chairman of the Group of Eurozone Finance Ministers). “The question is when your country will adopt the euro as its currency. Not if.” Surrounded by the country’s prime minister, deputy prime minister and foreign minister, his presence carried much European political power. A month later, the coalition government collapsed and these three ministers were swept out of office. Donahue’s visit – rallying support for Bulgaria’s faltering bid to become the 21st country to use the euro – came at a less than ideal time.”
Politico spoke to politicians and experts who say the target date will not be met – because of political turmoil, persistent inflation and unconvincing public support.
MEP Petar Vitanov says that the political crisis makes it impossible to introduce the euro from January 1, 2025, and adds: “In reality, we do not know what the next government will be and whether this will be one of its priorities.”
Apart from the opinion of Sintsia Alcidi from CEPS, it is recalled that Prime Minister Academician Nikolay Denkov said that this date was not sacred, the deadline was criticized by the governor of the BNB, and Donahue himself carefully chose his words in Sofia when he spoke about expected membership in 2025, but was missing the specific date.
“The only obstacle for Bulgaria is meeting the inflation criterion,” says Zholt Darvash from the Bruegel Economic Institute in Brussels. According to him, the country is “in a good budgetary position – low public debt and budget deficit under control”.
But he also specifies that an estimated inflation of 2.9% in 2025 “indicates that Bulgaria’s accession may take place in 2026.” There is “some room for maneuver” as to whether the gray area (to form the criterion for Bulgaria whether it meets the inflationary requirements – note.ed.), which allowed Croatia to adopt the euro in 2023, can be used to shorten the period for the changeover per leva, but this “must be justified”, says Darvash.
A senior EU official tells Politico that Russian-backed disinformation is partly responsible for low approval of the euro among Bulgarians. Petar Vitanov says on this occasion that he continues to believe that the majority of Bulgarians would prefer to be in the Eurozone. “I don’t blame only the Russian propaganda. Yes, it exists. But those who are lagging behind are the Bulgarian politicians.”
The article concludes by describing that publicly the member countries of the eurozone support Bulgaria’s entry into their ranks in January 2025, but in private conversations high-ranking officials say that this almost certainly will not happen. “It’s off,” one of them states directly.
