site.btaSome 83% of Bulgaria's Administrative Structures Ready to Work with Euro

A total of 82.95% of the administrative structures in Bulgaria have adapted their information systems to work with the euro, the press centre of the Electronic Governance Ministry said on Monday. A total of 516 out of 521 administrative bodies have submitted their plans and have completed the adaptation process, according to data on a web-based platform (evro.egov.bg) for tracking and reporting the progress of State structures for the introduction of the single European currency.

The Electronic Governance Ministry plays a key role in preparing the public sector for the introduction of the euro. A major focus of this work is the adaptation of all information systems that process financial information and handle currency values - both at national and local level.

In order to ensure transparency and effective control, the Ministry provided a publicly accessible online platform to track the progress of each administrative entity. All bodies have drawn up their own adaptation plans and progress is reported on a fortnightly basis. The Electronic Governance Ministry has also developed specific methodological guidelines for the smooth and most cost-effective adaptation of the euro systems.

The platform maintains the principle of full transparency, publicity and traceability of processes. Citizens can track the progress of each administrative authority on each of its information systems. Summary and detailed reports are published in the system, allowing the overall progress of the implementation of the National Euro Changeover Plan to be tracked.

As of Monday, the scope of monitoring includes all administrative bodies, as well as the Presidential administration, the National Assembly administration, the Ombudsman, the Court of Auditors, the Supreme Judicial Council and the Inspectorate of the Supreme Judicial Council (602 structures in total). Of these, 516 administrative structures have systems that process financial information and have taken action to adapt them to work with the euro. There are still 5 administrations that have not started the preparatory activities - the municipalities of Bozhurishte, Pomorie and Panagyurishte, as well as Plovdiv's Severen borough and the Sofia's Novi Iskar borough, the press release states.

As of now, the progress of the administrations reached 82.79%, compared to 39.69% at the end of March - or an increase of over 43% in just two months. This means that 1,709 IT systems - or 80.12% of the total 2,133 systems - have already successfully passed tests for working with the euro, which is a strong indicator of technical readiness. Just over 420 systems are still being adapted to work with the euro and the work will be completed before the deadline.

According to the law, all systems processing financial information must be fully adapted at the latest three months before the introduction of the euro. Therefore, starting from October 1, the Electronic Governance Ministry will start conducting thorough checks for compliance with the requirements of the law on the introduction of the euro in the Republic of Bulgaria.