site.btaPM Zhelyazkov Expects Fiscal Discipline Efforts to Yield Results after ECB, Eurogroup Talks

The significance of membership in the euro area for Bulgaria was the focus of the meeting of Prime Minister Rossen Zhelyazkov with President of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde and President of the Eurogroup Paschal Donahue, the Government’s press service said Thursday. 

The three met in Brussels, where a session of the European Council is taking place. Zhelyazkov introduced Lagarde and Donahue to the budget procedure currently under way in Bulgaria’s National Assembly. He also stressed the compliance of the draft State budget for 2025 with the medium-term fiscal-structural plan.

“Bulgaria submitted a request for an extraordinary convergence report in February this year, when it met the Maastricht criteria for eurozone membership. I hope that the efforts of Bulgarian society in the last decades to maintain fiscal discipline and balanced budgets will produce the expected result,” Zhelyazkov said after the meeting.

Earlier in the day, Bulgarian National Bank Governor Dimitar Radev said Bulgaria is currently one of the few in the EU that unconditionally meet all nominal convergence criteria, including the price stability criterion. On Wednesday European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) President Odile Renaud-Basso told BTA Bulgaria is making good progress toward joining the Eurozone, as inflation is declining toward the threshold set by the criteria.