Bulgaria to ask for EU assessment on its readiness to adopt euro next year

SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria will ask the European Commission and the European Central Bank for an assessment on whether the Balkan country meets all criteria to join the euro zone in January next year, its finance minister said on Monday.

"The latest data showed Bulgaria had met the inflation target," Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova said, referring to its inflation rate of 2.6% in February.

To join the euro zone, a country's inflation rate cannot be higher than 1.5 percentage points above the rate of the three best-performing member states.

Bulgaria, which is the EU's poorest country, has stated its aim to join the euro zone next January. It is yet to adopt its 2025 budget which will set the deficit target at 3% of gross domestic product, the limit for euro zone membership.

Economists say that Bulgaria, whose currency, the lev, has been long pegged to the euro, would attract more foreign investment if it adopted the single currency and would secure credit ratings upgrades that could cut its debt financing costs.

Bulgarians are divided over the introduction of the euro, with many worrying that it will cause prices to skyrocket, as happened in Croatia when it adopted the euro in 2023.

On Saturday several thousand supporters of Bulgaria's ultra-nationalist Revival party scuffled with police while trying to storm the building of a European Union mission during a protest against introducing the euro.

(Reporting by Georgi Slavov; Editing by Ivana Sekularac and Susan Fenton)