ESM: Bulgaria, Romania must Meet All Criteria to Enter Eurozone

Bulgaria and Romania can join the Eurozone once they have met all membership criteria, the managing director of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the Eurozone's rescue fund, said. "It is an ongoing process [...] Other countries should join but they need to meet the criteria," Klaus Regling said in response to a SeeNews question during a press briefing in Luxembourg last week.

"The convergence criteria are legally defined in the Maastricht Treaty and I know that Bulgaria has made a significant progress in meeting those criteria but hasn't met all of them," he added. Bulgaria and Romania committed to adopt the euro upon their accession to the European Union in 2007. The euro convergence criteria are measured through consumer price inflation, budget deficit, government debt, long-term interest rates and deviation from central exchange rate. Speaking over the weekend after a meeting with European Council President Donald Tusk, Bulgaria's prime minister Boyko Borissov said the country has met all the criteria to enter the Eurozone's waiting room, the Exchange Rate Mechanism II (ERMII).

"Bulgaria does not represent a risk to the Eurozone and deserves to be in its waiting room because it meets all the criteria for that," Borissov said in a statement issued by the government's press office. Borissov stressed the country's robust macroeconomic performance, budget surplus and low level of government debt-to-GDP ratio - the third lowest in the EU, as well as the significant drop in unemployment. Bulgaria's annual consumer price inflation stood at 1.4% in August.

The state budget showed a surplus equivalent to 2.2% of the GDP in the January-August period. Government debt totalled 6.0 billion levs, or 12% of GDP at the end of July. The Bulgarian...