Weather In Bulgaria On March 29: Sunny Skies and Rising Temperatures Across The Country
Bulgaria is set to experience favorable weather conditions on March 29, with mostly sunny skies forecasted across the country
HOT: » Assessing the Legacy of Bulgaria's "Denkov" Cabinet: Achievements, Failures, and What Comes Next
The crisis at Corporate Commercial Bank (KTB) is likely to delay Bulgaria’s intention to join the Eurozone event further, Euromoney magazine has reported, quoting analysts.
The bank run on Bulgaria’s fourth-largest lender has brought “allegations of corruption and political instability to the fore”, adding up to a conclusion in this year’s convergence report by the European Commission that Bulgaria still does not meet all the Eurozone membership criteria. The EC cited cited ‘incompatibilities and imperfections’ with regard to the independence of Bulgaria’s central bank (BNB) for its conclusion.
Making a brief overview of the KTB crisis, Euromoney author Farah Khalique quotes the opinion of Gunter Deuber, head of CEE research at Raiffeisen Bank International, that the banking scandal is not adding to Bulgaria’s chances of joining the eurozone and “[…] will certainly, at least from a short-term perspective, create a more cautious view of Bulgaria’s standing in Brussels."
According to Antonio Timoner-Salva, senior economist at business information and analytics company HIS, “last month’s announcement that Bulgaria will aim to “voluntarily join the European banking union” even though the country is not a Eurozone member was “a smart move” signaling that the Bulgarian authorities “are committed to achieve much better standards of banking supervision, " the Euromoney article says.
But while the authorities are trying to put Bulgaria on track for Eurozone membership despite the odds, the public in the EU’s poorest member state still needs convincing, with the European debt crisis having “made Bulgarians more cautious about adopting the euro”.
And those Bulgarians are not the only ones to be sceptical about the benefits of replacing the lev with the euro, to which the Bulgarian currency has been pegged at a fixed exchange rate since 1999 under a rigorous monetary mechanism called currency board system.
According to Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who helped introduce Bulgaria’s currency board in 1997, the country should stick to the lev.
“Just being a member of the EU but not part of the eurozone means they can’t get bailed out, so have to stand on their own two feet and be disciplined," Euromoney quoted Hanke as saying.
You can read the full Euromoney article here.
We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!
Brazen Bulgarian gangs "terrorise the elderly and rob them over their life savings with increasingly aggressive phone scams nettling millions of euros," according to an AFP story.
The prospect of US President Donald Trump's moving closer to Russia has scrambled the strategy of "balancing East and West" used for decades by countries like Bulgaria, the New York Times says.
Bulgarians have benefited a lot from their EU membership, with incomes rising and Brussels overseeing politicians, according to a New York Times piece.
German businesses prefer to trade with Bulgaria rather than invest into the country, an article on DW Bulgaria's website argues.
The truth about Bulgaria and Moldova's presidential elections is "more complicated" and should not be reduced to pro-Russian candidates winning, the Economist says.
President-elect Rumen Radev "struck a chord with voters by attacking the status quo and stressing issues like national security and migration," AFP agency writes after the presidential vote on Sunday.
UN Happiness Report: Bulgaria's Astonishing Leap in Rankings
Bulgaria: 3 Regions With Lowest Life Expectancy - EU Report 2022