Bulgaria will not adopt the euro from January 1, 2024, as the country planned, Finance Minister Rositsa Velkova said on February 17.
"The date of January 1, 2024, is no longer valid.... The new target date is January 1, 2025," she told a press conference.
The reason for the postponement is that parliament has failed to adopt the necessary legal changes, including reforms on money laundering, and Bulgaria does not meet the criterion for the level of inflation, she said.
"Our European partners believe that Bulgaria is late with the adoption of the legislation," she added.
Bulgaria has been following a strict austerity regime since 1997 whereby the national currency, the lev, is pegged to the euro at a fixed rate.
The decision to postpone joining the eurozone comes as the EU member faces a fifth parliamentary election in two years on April 2. Bulgarian President Rumen Radev dissolved the last parliament at the start of February after just four months.
Successive elections have produced fragmented parliaments in which no party has been able to cobble together a government.
Velkova warned in January that unadopted legal changes could delay Bulgaria's membership in the eurozone. Despite her warning, the measures never came to a vote.
Velkova told the press conference that Bulgaria will not submit a convergence report at the end of February, and with that the deadline of the beginning of 2024 for entering the eurozone is also dropped. The decision was made after talks with European officials.
It was agreed that Bulgaria should strive for a new date, which would be no later than January 1, 2025.
Bulgaria must fulfill its commitment to join the Currency Mechanism II and adopt four draft laws, including the Anti-Money Laundering Measure, a Commercial Bankruptcy Law, and changes to the law regulating insurance.