Bulgaria’s entry into the Eurozone, i.e. the adoption of the Euro as a national currency, is an obligation the country and Brussels have under Bulgaria’s EU accession treaty. But this treaty lays down no deadlines, just obligations that are subject to loose interpretation.

According to some of these criteria, Bulgaria is coping well, according to others there are inconsistencies, work on yet another group of criteria is currently underway with the anticipated results expected in the foreseeable future. Be as it may, adopting the Euro is not something that is pending today or the next day, it is a strategic project with a horizon of no less than 10 years.

Still, we have of late been seeing some curious tendencies in this country. Businesses have been more and more active in demanding the introduction of the Euro ASAP. The Bulgarian Industrial Association, the most influential employers’ organization in the country, recently demanded that the authorities adopt a national plan by mid-2016 for the introduction of the Euro, cautioning that unless this is done, the country will grow poorer and poorer and less and less competitive. President Rosen Plevneliev, himself with strong pro-western leanings, gave his subtle support to businesses’ insistent demands pointing to 2018 as the year of the country’s entry into the Eurozone’s so-called waiting room. Dimitar Radev, Bulgarian National Bank governor and out-and-out technocrat warned that this was not something the country should be rushing into before the results of this year’s bank stress tests are made public, though he never questioned Bulgaria’s European future or the impending demise of the national currency, the Lev. It should not be forgotten that the Lev has been pegged to the Euro for fifteen years and that that is the reason why it is fairly stable, something that benefits the economy as well as citizens.

But for any country to enter the Eurozone it must get an invitation from the European Central Bank and all other European institutions. They, to put it mildly, look askance at Bulgaria, regarding it primarily as a source of problems – who would want to bring problems on themselves? One case in point is the Schengen area – Bulgaria meets all formal accession requirements, yet for two years the European institutions have shown a stubborn reluctance to let the country in.  The main reason – corruption and the “dysfunctional” and unreformed judicial system. In the economy these problems carry even more weight, making one thing certain – that without serious headway in the rule of law there is no way the Euro can replace the Bulgarian Lev. One other thing. It is by no means clear what will happen to the Euro itself after this prolonged wait and how Bulgarian citizens will one day view it; they have been growing less enamoured of the idea as it is.

English version: Milena Daynova