Authorities in France have expressed support for Bulgaria’s accession to the Eurozone as of January 1, 2025.
Bulgaria’s state-run BTA news agency said that France also reaffirmed its support for Bulgaria’s membership in the Schengen Zone through land borders during talks between Bulgarian Finance Minister Assen Vassilev and his French counterpart.
In addition, according to the AA report, Paris also indicated its readiness to cooperate with Bulgarian border and customs officials in underpinning controls at the external European borders.
Bulgaria’s Finance Minister Assen Vassilev said Sofia is in talks with the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) on introducing the euro as a parallel currency along with the Bulgarian lev.
Vassilev’s comments were made in June last year, stressing that the target to enter the eurozone was January 1, 2025. However, Bulgaria believed that the currency could be introduced a year earlier.
However, earlier this year, Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov said his country may miss the eurozone target date, which is January 1, 2025, according to a report from Politico.
What is sacred is not the date but having a clear direction and working on it. This is good for business, good for citizens, good for welfare, and good for the control of financial institutions.
The same notes that Bulgaria cancelled its plan to switch to the euro by the beginning of this year after its inflation rate didn’t meet the required standard, and it still needs to make some legal changes.
The date is when all the Maastricht criteria are met. Maybe January 1, 2025, would be one possible date.
Bulgaria became part of the European Union in January 2007. However, in spite of estimations from the European Union that the country met all the necessary conditions to become part of Schengen, the process has still not been finalised completely.
Irregular migration concerns led Austria and the Netherlands to block Bulgaria’s accession to Schengen in December 2022.
However, in December last year, Dutch Deputy Justice Minister Eric Can der Burg said his country now backs the membership of the Netherlands to the borderless area of the EU.
At the same time, Austria’s “Air Schengen” proposal has granted accession to Schengen by both Bulgaria and Romania by air and sea, but when it comes to land border accession, the country continues to maintain its veto.
