Bulgaria Nears Completion of Leva Withdrawal as 81% Taken Out of Circulation
As of February 6, 2026, Bulgaria continues to make steady progress in withdrawing the national currency, the leva, from circulation.
Bulgaria's former deputy prime minister and finance minister, Simeon Djankov, will be a lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School, the prestigious US institution has confirmed.
The information was published on the site of Harvard Kennedy School, accompanied by a short presentation of Djankov.
The former minister has been appointed adjunct lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.
According to earlier media publications, Simeon Djankov, finance minister in the previous Cabinet of PM, Boyko Borisov, and his center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party, GERB, had received offers to teach at the prestigious Harvard and Stanford.
After the resignation of the GERB government back in February 2013, Djankov announced this was the end of his political career, stressing he will focus on academics from now on.
Now he has confirmed he is writing a book – “Inside the Euro Crisis”.
The former finance minister, a firm proponent of fiscal discipline, disagrees with those analysts, who say the "Borisov" government fell due to its austerity drive.
Prior to his cabinet appointment, Simeon Djankov was the Chief economist of the finance and private sector vice-presidency of the World Bank.
In his fourteen years at the World Bank, he worked on regional trade agreements in North Africa, enterprise restructuring and privatization in transition economies, corporate governance in East Asia, and regulatory reforms around the world.
He is the founder of the World Bank's Doing Business project.
Simeon Djankov was a principal author of the World Development Report 2002, an associate editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics from 2004 to 2009, and Chairman of the Board of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in 2012-2013.
He is also a member of the Knowledge and Advisory Council at the World Bank. Simeon Djankov holds a 1997 economics doctorate from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
He has published over 70 articles in professional journals. Journals include the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Political Economy, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics. He has also co-edited the book "Resolution of Financial Crises," with Stijn Claessens and Ashoka Mody.
Bulgaria has taken on new debt amounting to 150 million euros through the issuance of government securities, according to results published on the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) website.
The first month following the introduction of the euro and the period of dual circulation with the lev has now ended, providing a clearer picture of how the transition is unfolding.
The annual campaign for filing personal income tax returns under Article 50 of the Personal Income Tax Act is underway
The Bulgarian National Bank reported that as of February 6, 2026, the withdrawal of lev banknotes and coins and their replacement with euro cash is progressing in line with the applicable legislation and the operational plans approved for the transition.
From February 1, 2026, Bulgaria officially completes its transition to the euro, which now serves as the country’s sole legal currency.
Bulgaria is facing rising living costs, with service prices still climbing, according to economists. Authorities have already flagged the most frequent violations of the Law on the Euro since the start of the year, largely in the form of unjustified incre
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