Case T-654/25: Action brought on 16 September 2025 – Stoyanov v Council
Date: 2025-09-16
Institutions: General Court
Subjects: Bulgaria, abuse of power, conversion rate, economic convergence, euro, national currency, participating country (euro area), principle of legal certainty, principle of proportionality, principle of subsidiarity








C_202506631EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2025/6631


22.12.2025






Action brought on 16 September 2025 – Stoyanov v Council


(Case T-654/25)

(C/2025/6631)
Language of the case: Bulgarian

Parties


Applicant: Stanislav Dobrinov Stoyanov (Brussels, Belgium) (represented by: P. Chenalova, lawyer)

Defendant: Council of the European Union

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should annul:






—


Council Decision (EU) 2025/1407 of 8 July 2025 on the adoption by Bulgaria of the euro with effect from 1 January 2026, (1)











—


Council Regulation (EU) 2025/1408 of 8 July 2025 amending Regulation (EC) No 974/98 as regards the introduction of the euro in Bulgaria, (2) and










—


Council Regulation (EU) 2025/1409 of 8 July 2025 amending Regulation (EC) No 2866/98 as regards the conversion rate to the euro for Bulgaria. (3)






Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on the following pleas in law.






1.


First plea in law: the three contested acts were adopted in breach of essential procedural requirements.
The acts are not substantiated; the principles of legal certainty and protection of legitimate expectations, proportionality, sincere cooperation, democracy and transparency, good administration and subsidiarity have been infringed; institutional balance and democratic principles have been infringed.










2.


Second plea in law: infringement of the Treaties (Article 338(2) and Article 140 TFEU) and legal rules relating to the implementation of the Treaties (Protocol 13 on the convergence criteria, Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics, (4) Regulation (EU) 2016/792 on harmonised indices of consumer prices (HICP) and house price indices, (5) Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1148, (6) European Statistics Code of Practice).
The assessment that Bulgaria fulfils the convergence requirements was based on formal reports by the Commission and the ECB and failure to fulfil the criteria for analysing the durability of the convergence, contradictory data, manipulation of inflation data by reducing the price of hospital services by the Bulgarian authorities, contradictions between inflation indicators, budget deficit and debt-to-GDP ratio; as well as doubts concerning adjustments made to basic statistical data by the National Statistical Institute (Bulgaria.)










3.


Third plea in law: abuse of powers.
In adopting the contested acts – the decision and the regulations, the Council infringed its obligation to conduct a careful and impartial review. The contested acts do not contain an analysis of the facts or justification regarding the durability of the fulfilment of the criteria, including the causal link between the data used and the positive conclusions.






(1)  OJ L 2025/1407.

(2)  OJ L 2025/1408.

(3)  OJ L 2025/1409.

(4)  Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 on European statistics and repealing Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1101/2008 on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities, Council Regulation (EC) No 322/97 on Community statistics and Decision 89/382/EEC, (OJ 2009 L 87, p. 164).

(5)  Regulation (EU) 2016/792 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2016 on harmonised indices of consumer prices and the house price index, and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 2494/95 (OJ 2016 L 135, p. 11).

(6)  Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1148 of 31 July 2020 laying down, pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2016/792 of the European Parliament and of the Council, the methodological and technical specifications of the harmonised indices of consumer prices and the house price index (OJ 2020 L 252, p. 12).


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/6631/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)