Bulgaria and the euro

Bulgaria committed to switching its currency, the lev, to the euro upon its joining the European Union in 2007, as stated in its EU accession treaty.

The transition will occur once the country meets all the euro convergence criteria; it currently meets three of the five criteria, the exception being its membership for at least two years of the EU's official exchange rate mechanism (ERM II), which it has not yet joined despite the current Bulgarian lev having been pegged to the euro since its introduction in 1999. In 2011 Bulgaria's Minister of Finance Simeon Djankov stated that adoption of the euro would be postponed until after the Eurozone crisis had stabilized. Bulgarian euro coins have not yet been designed, but their motif has been chosen to be the Madara Rider.

Bulgaria euro coins will replace the current national currency, the lev, once the convergence criteria are fulfilled. As the current lev was fixed to the Deutsche Mark at par, the lev's peg effectively switched to the euro, at the rate of 1.95583 leva = 1 euro, which is the Deutsche Mark's fixed exchange rate to euro. On the occasion of the signing of the EU accession treaty on 25 April 2005, the Bulgarian National Bank issued a commemorative coin with a face value of 1.95583 leva, giving it a nominal value of exactly 1 euro.

The Madara Rider was one of the favourites to become the symbol of Bulgaria to be used on the national side of the country's euro coins. Other eminent pretenders for the title ‘Symbol of Bulgaria' were the ancient tradition of the nestinars (Bulgarian fire-dancers), Cyrillic, the Rila Monastery and the Tsarevets medieval fortress near Veliko Turnovo.

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