Bulgaria officially admitted. In January it will become the 21st country of the eurozone

EU finance ministers agreed on Friday for Bulgaria to join the eurozone on January 1, 2026. At the beginning of next year, Bulgaria will become the 21st EU member state in the eurozone.

To introduce the euro, a country must meet the so-called convergence criteria. Whether a country can adopt the common currency is decided by the member states based on an assessment by the European Commission. The EC assessed Bulgaria's efforts positively on 4 June.

The issue of Bulgaria's entry into the eurozone will be discussed by leaders of the member states at a summit next week in Brussels.

The finalization of the legal process of Bulgaria's entry into the eurozone will be completed with the adoption of three legal acts by the member states, which are to be adopted in July. This will enable Bulgaria to introduce the euro into circulation on 1 January 2026.

Apart from Bulgaria, six EU countries remain outside the eurozone: Poland, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Denmark.

Finance Minister Andrzej Domański, who chaired a meeting of his counterparts in Luxembourg on Friday, told journalists that Poland is not working on joining the eurozone. In his opinion, this is an optimal state.

The condition for joining the eurozone is to meet four criteria (known as convergence criteria). These are: price stability (low inflation), stable public finances (budget deficit below 3% of GDP and public debt below 60% of GDP), exchange rate stability (participation in the so-called ERM II mechanism, the so-called eurozone waiting room, for at least two years without serious exchange rate disturbances) and convergence of long-term interest rates (the average nominal long-term interest rate may be higher by a maximum of 2 percentage points than the average interest rates in the three EU countries with the lowest inflation).

On July 10, 2020, Bulgaria joined the ERM II mechanism, which is called the "euro zone waiting room". Since then, the Bulgarian lev has been pegged to the euro.

From Luxembourg Magdalena Cedro (PAP)

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