A conflict of interest clouds the EU Parliament’s review of Bulgaria’s euro bid

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BrusselsReport.eu
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By MEP Auke Zijlstra

On 1 January 2026, the time will have come. Bulgaria will officially become the twenty-first member state of the eurozone. Only six Member States of the European Union will then still have their own monetary policy: Sweden, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic because they do not want to, Romania because it is not yet allowed to, and Denmark because it requested and was granted an opt-out from the monetary union.

According to the European treaties, all EU member states – with the exception of Denmark – are obliged to join the eurozone. To do so, member states must meet a number of criteria. The European Central Bank and the European Commission regularly assess the stability of the national currency to be replaced, the health of public finances and the financial sector, the level of corruption in the country, and the state of the rule of law. If the ECB and the European Commission are satisfied, the Council (the Member States) must unanimously decide whether the candidate country in question may join the eurozone. A date is then set for the actual introduction of the euro. For Bulgaria, this will be 1 January 2026.

The European Parliament is not involved in the accession process under the Treaties. No vote by the European Parliament is required to approve the opinion of the ECB and the European Commission or the final decision of the Council. Within the Parliament’s Committee on Economic Affairs, there is a working group on “Eurozone accession” which meets twice a year with representatives of the Commission and the ECB to discuss the progress of the accession negotiations behind closed doors. However, Romania is currently the only country on the agenda.

It is customary for the European Parliament to adopt a resolution supporting the Council’s decision. Or rejecting it, which is also possible. In 2022, for example, Parliament voted 539 to 45 in favour of Croatia becoming the 20th member of the eurozone on 1 January 2023.

In Croatia’s case, it was relatively easy. Even before the euro was introduced as the official currency in the country, companies could take out loans in euros and Croatians saved in euros at banks. Thanks to close economic ties with Italy and Austria, the use of the euro was already well established among both savers and businesses.

Bulgaria drops in corruption rankings

Corruption was an issue when Croatia joined the eurozone. Croatia ranks 63rd on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index and has even fallen further in the rankings in recent years. However, it still scores better than Bulgaria, which ranks 76th and is also falling.

By way of comparison, the Netherlands fell from 8th to 9th place in the rankings. This is the lowest score ever for the Netherlands. None of the EU candidate countries, which will eventually adopt the euro after accession, are in a particularly good position. I am not aware of any level of corruption that is no longer acceptable to the ECB or the European Commission. But it is not insignificant either.

According to Eurobarometer, only 37% of Bulgarians are in favour of joining the eurozone. That is dramatically low, but not incomprehensible. Measurements of the direct effects of joining the eurozone show limited but noticeable additional inflation, especially in the hospitality industry and mainly due to opportunistic price rounding in the new currency. Always up, never down. And wages are not high in Bulgaria.

30.3% poverty, Bulgaria’s budget still better than the Netherlands

There is also persistent unemployment, particularly among young people. This is despite a massive exodus of the working population to the west since Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007. After all, those who leave leave behind job vacancies. The departure of so many people has even destroyed services such as healthcare. Incomes have developed positively since 2007, but this has slowed down in recent years. A staggering 30.3% live in poverty according to the EU definition, which is the worst figure in the entire EU. All things considered, no Member State has coped relatively as badly with the transition to EU membership as Bulgaria. It is not negative, but it should have been much better.

The budgetary situation in Bulgaria is fine, better than in the Netherlands. The national debt is just above 20% and the budget deficit is below the maximum permitted deficit. The problem is that, apart from exports of lead, zinc and copper, the Bulgarian economy is insignificant. The departure of the working population to better-paying countries such as the Netherlands does not seem to be stopped by the euro. The result could be a completely depopulated country, where you can still withdraw euros from ATMs.

From the perspective of the eurozone, the risk of Bulgaria joining is minimal. Even if the economy collapses, the risk of contagion to other member states is small. The Bulgarian banking sector is also small in size.

Now, you know more than the average MEP

Taking all this into account, are you in favour of or against Bulgaria joining the eurozone? Whatever you think, you are already better informed than the MEPs who will be voting very soon. A parliamentary report always includes a brief explanation of the rapporteur’s position and the background to the discussion. This is the basis on which votes are cast.

However, the rapporteur responsible decided not to write a report at all. It was my group’s turn (and I would have been happy to do it), but the Christian Democratic group in the European Parliament decided to claim the report anyway.

Bulgarian MEP Eva Maydell of the Bulgarian GERB, which is also the country’s prime minister’s party, was then appointed rapporteur. This appears to be an unacceptable conflict of interest: same country and member of the ruling party. She decided that there would be no debate, no report and therefore no amendments and no political statement. We will soon have a voting list with only one question: are you for or against Bulgaria’s accession to the eurozone? My group, Patriots for Europe, and also LEFT, the left-wing group, objected to this course of action. The other political groups were in favour of the “accelerated” procedure, or were not present at the meeting where this was decided.

This raises the question of what role the European Parliament sees for itself. A democrat might argue that it is the role of a parliament to ask critical questions. Not to vote blindly. Not every Member of the European Parliament seems to agree with this.

Originally published in Dutch here.

Auke Zijlstra is a Dutch Member of European Parliament for the PVV. He can be found on X as @EconoomZijlstra. He often discusses EU affairs on this page.

 

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