site.btaNo National Referendum against Euro Changeover, Constitutional Court Rules

Bulgaria's Constitutional Court on Thursday adopted a decision dismissing conclusively an initiative to hold a national referendum on keeping the lev as the country's only official currency until 2043.  

Forty-nine MPs (of the Vazrazhdane and There Is Such a People parliamentary groups and independent MP Radostin Vasilev) petitioned the Court on July 14, 2023 to declare unconstitutional a July 7, 2023 National Assembly Resolution refusing to organize such a referendum. The proposal for the referendum was submitted to Parliament on April 7, 2023. The legislature voted, 68-98 with 46 abstentions to reject it. The majority argued that it was unlawful to submit to a referendum matters regulated by international treaties concluded by Bulgaria and that such a referendum could only be held before such treaties have been ratified.
 
All 12 members of the Court voted in favour of declining this petition and of terminating the proceedings in this part.

The Court approved the operative part of the decision by which the petition was rejected by a vote of 11 in favour. Judge Yanaki Stoilov signed the decision with a dissenting opinion, and Judge Atanas Semov stated observations.

While the Constitutional Court was in session and even before the decision was rendered, Vazrazhdane staged an unprecedented protest in front of the building. As part of the demonstration, protesters burnt an effigy of a Constitutional Court judge, setting on fire a car on which the effigy was placed.

Vazrazhdane spearheaded the campaign for holding a referendum against the euro. A total of 471,000 valid signatures were collected in support of the proposal.

Bulgaria undertook to join the euro area by the Treaty concerning its accession to the EU, effective January 1, 2007. The tentative date for Bulgaria's euro changeover is January 1, 2025. Admission is contingent on fulfilment of the convergence criteria.