{"id":13398,"date":"2018-07-19T06:06:44","date_gmt":"2018-07-19T06:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/bulgaria-joining-euro-zone\/"},"modified":"2018-07-19T06:06:44","modified_gmt":"2018-07-19T06:06:44","slug":"bulgaria-joining-euro-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/he\/bulgaria-joining-euro-zone\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulgarian Cabinet approves ECB close co-operation application, first step towards joining euro zone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bulgaria\u2019s government approved on July 18 the formal application for close co-operation with the European Central Bank (ECB), the first step towards joining the ERM II exchange rate mechanism, sometimes referred to as the euro zone\u2019s \u201cwaiting room.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The decision also mandated Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov to send the application letter, the cabinet\u2019s media office said in a statement. In a separate statement from the Finance Ministry, Goranov said that the letter would be sent \u201cwithin hours.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bulgaria\u2019s application would be accompanied by a draft of the legislative changes that Bulgaria plans to implement in order to bring its legislation in line with ECB requirements, the Finance Ministry said.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, Bulgaria\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sofiaglobe.com\/2018\/07\/13\/eurogroup-offers-bulgaria-euro-zone-backing-but-no-firm-date\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>received<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0the tentative backing for joining ERM II from the Eurogroup, the body that brings together the finance ministers of the 19 countries in the euro zone.<\/p>\n<p>The decision to allow Bulgaria into ERM II would be tied directly to the ECB decision on close co-operation, implying that Bulgaria would simultaneously join both ERM II and the EU banking union, created in 2012 in response to the euro zone crisis.<\/p>\n<p>Bulgaria has targeted joining ERM II in July 2019 and the Eurogroup statement said that the ECB \u201ccould be expected to conclude\u201d its comprehensive assessment \u2013 stress tests of Bulgaria\u2019s banks \u2013 within approximately one year after Bulgaria\u2019s formal application.<\/p>\n<p>Commenting on the Cabinet\u2019s decision, Goranov said that joining the euro zone was the natural next step for Bulgaria, which has maintained a strict currentcy board agreement since 1997, with the national currency pegged initially to the Deutsche Mark and then the euro.<\/p>\n<p>Given the currency peg, \u201cthe effects of ECB policy on the Bulgarian economy are already in place,\u201d Goranov said.<\/p>\n<p>Source:\u00a0https:\/\/sofiaglobe.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bulgaria\u2019s government approved on July 18 the formal application for close co-operation with the European Central Bank (ECB), the first&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11621,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[209],"tags":[466],"class_list":{"0":"post-13398","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sr-blog-bulgaria-news-he","8":"tag-euro-zone-he"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/he\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/he\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/he\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/he\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/he\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/he\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/he\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/he\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/he\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/he\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}