PRESS RELEASE
13 February 2024
Today the new Law on the Bulgarian National Bank has been promulgated in the State Gazette, which will enter into force on the day specified in the Decision of the Council of the European Union on the introduction of the euro in the Republic of Bulgaria.
The adoption of this Law meets the requirement for legal convergence of the Bulgaria’s central bank statutory provisions as it ensures the Bank’s legal integration into the Eurosystem upon the introduction of the euro as the official currency of the Republic of Bulgaria. The new Law on the Bulgarian National Bank also takes into account the legal inconsistencies mentioned in the Convergence Reports of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission. The main approach in the law is to apply a legislative technique, which avoids reproducing the directly applicable provisions of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank, but it includes references to such provisions, where appropriate.
Within the ECB’s formal consultation procedure of the new Law of the Bulgarian National Bank, on 18 September 2023 the ECB’s Governing Council adopted an Opinion on the integration of the Bulgarian National Bank into the Eurosystem (CON/2023/27). In its opinion, the ECB welcomes the law’s objective to achieve the required level of legal convergence, and its legislative technique, which seeks to avoid reproducing directly applicable provisions of Union law.
The new Law on the Bulgarian National Bank, its rationale, and the report on the overall preliminary assessment of its impact are published here.