(Bloomberg) -- European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said Bulgaria is “well advanced” in the process of meeting the criteria for joining the euro.
Most Read from Bloomberg
-
Manhattan’s Morning Commute Time Drops With New Congestion Toll
-
US Students’ Reading Scores Drop to Worst in More Than 20 Years
“From what I have seen and the discussions that I have had with the Bulgarian authorities, I’m confident that this process is going well,” she told reporter in Frankfurt on Thursday.
Bulgaria’s new government said last week it will hold off for now from asking the ECB and the European Commission to assess its readiness to join the euro. While the administration declared euro adoption its top priority, it wants to formally meet all the requirements before filing a request.
Any EU nation that wants to join the currency area needs to meet several so-called convergence criteria. One of them requires that the applicant should have average inflation of no more than 1.5 percentage points above the rate of the three best performers in the bloc over the past 12 months.
The Balkan nation is off the target by 0.1 percentage points, Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova said last week.
Lagarde told reporters that the ECB is “marginally involved in the process, because we do not pass judgment on anything else than convergence toward inflation.”
--With assistance from Mark Schroers, Jana Randow and Alexander Weber.
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
-
Indy Pass, the Anti-Vail Seasonal Ski Ticket, Is Gaining Fans
-
What America's Tech Billionaires Really Bought When They Backed Donald Trump
©2025 Bloomberg L.P.