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

dimitar radev : bulgaria on the road to the euro speech by mr dimitar radev, governor of the bulgarian national bank, at the conference " bulgaria on the road to the euro ", sofia, 24 february 2023. * * * dear mr. president, dear mr. prime minister, dear mr. dombrovskis, dear ministers, dear members of the public, dear guests, first of all, i would like to thank the ministry of finance and minister rositsa velkova for organising this conference. a proper assessment of the current situation related to our path to the euro area will enable us to make the right decisions. for this reason, i will touch on three issues : 1. assessment of the current situation ; 2. possible solutions ; 3. the role of the bulgarian national bank ( bnb ). at this point of time we are rightly talking about inflation, which is one of the nominal criteria for accession, the only one we are currently not fulfilling. process - wise, legislation is not an insurmountable obstacle. the genesis of the overall delay in the process, however, lies in the political framework and more specifically in the political crisis of the last two years. the ongoing problems with the legislative program and with the domestic factors for high inflation are largely a consequence of the political crisis. as a result of this crisis, the budget process in the country is seriously disrupted. for the past two years, we have not had a clearly defined law on the annual state budget or a realistic macroeconomic framework and medium - term fiscal program. there is a tendency to loosen the country's traditionally strong fiscal stance, fuelling inflation and impeding market - based measures to reduce it, as fiscal expansion, among other things, increasingly conflicts with the global and regional trend of monetary policy tightening. 1 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches it is, of course, worth noting the efforts of the ministry of finance and the current caretaker government in controlling the negative fiscal trend and achieving a budget deficit for 2022 within the nominal convergence criterion. such a result, however, cannot be sustained without the adoption of a regular budget that is sufficiently disciplined, or in other words, guarantees the achievement of a budget deficit for this year and over the medium term firmly below 3 % of gdp. therefore, the solutions to the current problems in the process of joining the euro area can be sought along two lines : political consolidation and fiscal consolidation. by political consolidation i