Bulgaria's parliament rejects referendum on blocking Euro adoption until 2034

After a debate lasting several hours on July 6, Bulgaria’s National Assembly rejected a proposal to hold a referendum on retaining the lev as the country’s sole currency up to the year 2034. [...] The proposal told the referendum was backed by 68 MPs, from the pro-Kremlin minority party Vuzrazhdane – which initiated the petition for the referendum, the Bulgarian Socialist Party, ITN, independent MP Radostin Vassilev and two from WCC-DB. In effect, Vuzrazhdane was seeking to prevent Bulgaria from adopting the euro for the next 20 years. The proposal was rejected earlier this week by the legal affairs committee, on the grounds that the subject of the referendum was unconstitutional and illegal, because a referendum may not be held on renouncing an international treaty to which Bulgaria is a party. In joining the EU, Bulgaria undertook a treaty commitment to eventually adopt the euro. The proposal went to a vote in the House even though when it was an agenda item for the budget committee, that committee was not quorate, while the committees on civil society and EU affairs, which had been supposed to examine it on July 6, did not meet at all. Vuzrazhdane claimed that the law did not allow Parliament to assess whether a referendum was admissible, only to decide on holding one. [...] Critics of the Vuzrazhdane initiative on the poll say that Kostadinov’s party is trying to damage Bulgaria’s EU integration and are dangerous to the economy. There has been a disinformation campaign for months, on social networks, against Bulgaria adopting the euro, on the false grounds that doing so would have an inflationary effect. This false claim is spread even though no record shows adoption of the euro having an inflationary effect – in contrast, doing so lowers the transaction costs of doing business. However, the disinformation against the euro continues to be spread by the malign and the ignorant. A recent Eurobarometer poll found that among Bulgarians, 49 per cent were in favour of adopting the euro and 49 per cent against, with the remainder undecided. The poll found that in Bulgaria, support for euro adoption had increased by five points in the past year.
Read the full article here: The Sofia Globe