04.09.2012

"Bulgaria, the European Union's poorest member state and a rare fiscal bright spot for the bloc, has indefinitely frozen long-held plans to adopt the common currency, marking the latest fiscally prudent country to cool its enthusiasm for the embattled currency". This is the beginning of the Wall Street Journal article where Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and Finance Minister Simeon Djankov said that this decision came in response to deteriorating economic conditions and rising uncertainty over the prospects of the bloc, alongside a decisive shift of public opinion in Bulgaria. "Right now, I don't see any benefits of entering the euro zone, only costs. The public rightly wants to know who would we have to bail out when we join. It's too risky for us and it's also not certain what the rules are and what are they likely to be in one year or two," Minister Djankov added.

Bulgaria has won plaudits for successfully reducing its budget deficit to 2.1% of gross domestic product in 2011, said the authors of the article. The Finance Minister said Bulgaria's economy should still expand by around 1.5% this year. Here you can read the whole article.