site.btaCurrency Cannot Be Guarantee for Bulgaria's Full Integration in Heart of Europe, President Radev Says on Eurozone

Currency alone cannot be a guarantee for Bulgaria's full integration in the heart of Europe, Bulgarian President Rumen Radev said after a meeting with his Croatian counterpart Zoran Milanovic in Zagreb on Monday. "Such a guarantee is Bulgaria's efforts to develop as a normal, modern, democratic, European state with the rule of law, freedom of the media, free market economy, and this means transparency and equality in all public procurement, and protection of property. That is what will lead us to the heart of Europe. This requires very active work, not one-off efforts and a change of currency," Radev said.

In his view, it would have been much better if the information campaign and the full debate on the euro's adoption had unfolded in Bulgaria long before the country asked for a convergence report on its eurozone readiness earlier this year.

In 2024, Bulgaria and Croatia had a 50% growth in trade without Bulgaria being a member of the euro area. The trade, economic, cultural and educational relations between the two countries depend mostly on political will, good political relations, business interest and the conditions created for this business interest to be able to develop freely, the President argued.

Croatia is the newest member of the euro area, having joined on January 1, 2023, thus becoming the 20th eurozone member. On January 1, 2026, Bulgaria will become the newest eurozone member, after the EU Council unanimously approved on July 8 the decision for Bulgaria's accession to the euro area.

The most important thing to take from Croatia's experience is to strike a balance between an information campaign, controls on unjustified price increases and incentives for the development of the economy and its competitiveness, Radev said further. "We are closely monitoring all the processes, we are using their experience so that some negative trends can be mitigated and more benefit can be derived from this process," he added.