Bulgaria can adopt the euro only when the crisis has passed – Finance Minister

The adoption of the euro is a secondary priority for Bulgaria to securing macroeconomic stability and a prudent fiscal policy, Finance Minister Petar Oresharski said in Brussels.

In an interview with Bloomberg after a session of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (Ecofin), Oresharski said that Bulgaria’s entry into the European exchange rate mechanism ERM 2 and the subsequent adoption of the euro could happen only when the economic crisis had subsided.

Oresharski reiterated his upbeat forecast about the Bulgarian economy this year, saying that the Government expected a rise in the range zero to two per cent, where zero growth was the downbeat scenario.

Echoing the calls by rating agency Moody’s, Oresharski said that Bulgaria should not be put on a par with Romania, which had reached out for international financial assistance and had a free-floating currency. Bulgaria, on the other hand, has a currency board pegging the lev to the euro, a comfortable fiscal reserve and a surplus of three per cent last year.