On 6 December, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed in Brussels by European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commissioner for the Economy Paolo Gentiloni, Eurogroup President Pascal Donahue and, on the Bulgarian side, by Finance Minister Rositsa Velkova and Bulgarian National Bank Governor Dimitar Radev.
The memorandum will allow the minting of euro coins. The practical steps for minting the coins concern certain trial quantities. This is an important step for Bulgaria’s accession to the euro area.
In order to be able to choose the design of the euro coins, a competition will be launched for the images of the coins with denominations of 1 and 2 euro and 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 euro cents, in order to select the five strongest proposals. The selection will be made by a jury as well as by online voting, and there will be a final national vote at the end.
The campaign logo and slogan will also be selected after a competition.
An interesting detail is that many years ago, in 2008 , a request for proposals for the design of the coins was already organised. Back then, the largest number of Bulgarians – 25.5% – voted for the image of the Madara Rider. The other strongly supported proposals were the Cyrillic alphabet, the Rila Monastery and the Tsarevets fortress.
The date for the introduction of the single European currency in Bulgaria is planned for 1 January 2024.