''The loss from Bulgaria's delayed membership in the Eurozone and Schengen is between 4% and 5% of the country's GDP'', Bulgaria’s Minister of Finance Assen Vassilev said in an interview for Nova TV. ''The business loses between EUR 250 million and EUR 500 million just from currency conversion. Separately, delaying eurozone membership leads to higher interest rates and less investment'', Minister Vassilev said.
The losses stemming from Bulgaria’s delayed membership in Schengen are also huge, Minister Vassilev said with regard to the government’s draft decree, according to which Bulgaria should include in an official document the date January 1, 2025, as a target date for adopting the euro. Assen Vassilev said that this act is necessary, because the caretaker cabinet had not written down the date January 1, 2024, as the target date for Eurozone membership, and because it had drafted a budget with a 6.4% deficit.
It is extremely concerning that the largest company in Bulgaria, Lukoil Neftohim, which is part of the country's critical infrastructure, is still in the hands of a country that has declared Bulgaria a hostile state. This opinion was shared by energy..
“The divergence between the monetary and the fiscal policy pursued by the government continues to be the main reason why Bulgaria does not meet all criteria yet for entering the Eurozone,” Lyubomir Karimansky, member of the Governing Council of the..
Germany remains Bulgaria's strongest economic partner. Trade between the two countries for 2024 amounts to EUR 12 billion, said Tim Kurth, President of the German-Bulgarian Chamber of Industry and Commerce. At a ceremony held at the University of..
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