Bulgaria Delays Euro Entry, Agrees on Coins

Bulgaria is delaying its entry into the eurozone, and is likely to adopt the single currency in January 2025, as opposed to 2024 as originally planned.

Bulgaria has been committed to joining the euro area since 2007, when it became a member of the European Union. In 2020, the European Central Bank confirmed that both the Croatian kuna and the Bulgarian lev had been admitted to the Exchange Rate Mechanism, a prerequisite to full euro adoption.

Croatia joined the currency union this January. Shortly after, the Bulgarian Finance Minister announced that it would not file the necessary required Convergence Report, due in part to internal political uncertainty, and so the adoption date of 2024 will not be met. Hence speculation of a more likely date of January 2025.

In the meantime, however, the Bulgarian National Bank has agreed on the design principles of the country’s new euro coins, which will contain the same images as the existing stotinka and lev coins to ensure continuity and facilitate recognition of the new currency. The Madara Rider features on the 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 stotinka coins, St John of Rila on the 1 lev and Paisius of Hilendar on the 2 lev will be retained on the corresponding euro coins.

On the national side, the word ‘Bulgaria’ will be written in Cyrillic, as will the word euro (for the 1 and 2 euro coins) and stotinka for the euro cent coins.

The designs will be submitted to the Coordination Council, which has been set up to prepare Bulgaria for euro area membership. After its final approval, the designs will be presented to the Council of the European Union, the European Commission and the member states of the eurozone.