the following, at least, 20 years. we have been actively working on other euro area - related legislative amendments as well. for example, yesterday the governing council adopted the required amendments to the law on the payment systems concerning the euro area. this draft will be submitted to the ministry of finance today or on monday at the latest because the bnb is not entitled to direct legislative initiative. 3 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches i do not have to dwell on this any further. what i would like to say is that on the part of the bnb, there is not a single day of delay with regard to the euro area - related legislative programme, nor is there any unsettled issue in this regard, with the ecb or with the european commission. and yesterday, during our debates with mr. dombrovskis, we cleared up this topic. the same is true for the technical preparations. the bnb and commercial banks provided in their 2023 budgets the funds required for these preparations which are well underway. for example, yesterday we discussed with mr. dombrovskis and his team as to how we can move forward with the implementation of the memorandum on the minting of test bulgarian euro coins, signed in december. a few words about the date. we do understand the considerations of the european commission and the government about changing the date. this certainly will bring new challenges for the bnb and commercial banks to deal with, as this will require changes to their timetables and the relevant calibration of the resources earmarked for this purpose. let me sum up in conclusion. the current issues relating to inflation and the legislative programme must be considered in the wider context of the needed political and fiscal consolidation. otherwise the measures in these spheres will remain sporadic and ineffective. the bnb and commercial banks have been systematically and consistently working on the issues within their competence concerning the euro adoption, but they are prepared to calibrate the tasks and the resources for their performance should the target date be changed. 4 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches

##b and our banking sector, respectively, are the first public institution and the first economic sector in bulgaria to be part of the euro area. the bnb participates in making the most important decisions related to the supervision and resolution of european banks, including bulgarian ones. moreover, our vote, regardless of the size of our economy and banking sector, has the same weight as the vote of any other central bank in the euro area. furthermore, in the person of mr. radoslav milenkov, the bulgarian national bank has a representative in the steering committee of the supervisory board of the ecb ’ s banking supervision, which includes representatives of only five national supervisory authorities. this is a position that is taken on a rotational basis, but the fact that we receive it at the beginning of our membership is an extremely important sign. these developments in recent years alone have led me to draw the following conclusion : the bnb and our banking sector are very strong examples of institutional development in an environment of still serious institutional deficits. the recipe for this is simple : the right decisions in the right strategic context. the right actions in the banking sector have included major reforms in the sector, including the central bank governance model and the banking supervision, and the right context is the sector's accession to key euro area institutions such as the single supervisory mechanism and the single resolution mechanism. the practical result is the solid capacity, resources and expertise built to solve the challenges facing the sector and the economy. they have been tested and convincingly demonstrated in recent years. the bnb was one of the first central banks to initiate a large - scale anti - crisis package of more than 8 % of gdp at the outset of the covid pandemic. we did it in march 2020, when it was still debated if it wasn't just a common cold that would go away in the summer. the alternative was to wait, monitor and analyse the situation for at least a few months before taking concrete action. from today's perspective, we can say that such waiting could have impacted very adversely banks, businesses and households alike. it was that anti - crisis package that allowed the introduction of a moratorium on loan repayments, which at its peak exceeded bgn 9 billion. here is the place to emphasise that this was a private moratorium, an initiative by our commercial banks, as they better than anyone else understand that when their customers are not well, they are not well either. the association played a