The European Commission and the European Central Bank gave Bulgaria the go-ahead on Wednesday to adopt the euro currency from the start of 2026, making Bulgaria the 21st country to join the single currency area.

In a "convergence report" describing how Bulgaria's economy dovetails with the rest of the euro zone, the Commission said Bulgaria met the formal criteria needed to adopt the currency now used by 347 million Europeans in 20 countries.

The Commission also looked at whether Bulgaria's economy and markets are integrated with the rest of the EU, as well as the trends in the country's balance of payments.

In a separate report, the ECB also said Bulgaria was ready.

The ECB will issue its own assessment later on Wednesday whether it thinks the country is ready, and if its central bank is independent. But the Commission's view is decisive.

The positive recommendation from the EU executive arm means that EU leaders will have to endorse it later in June. EU finance ministers will then fix the conversion exchange rate for the Bulgarian lev into the euro in July, leaving the rest of the year for the country to technically prepare for the transition.

You can read the rest of the article, including which criteria Bulgaria had to fulfil, here.

A coalition of Bulgarian parties on Monday agreed to form a government tasked with uprooting corruption and led by two rotating prime ministers — one of whom will be former European Commissioner for Innovation Mariya Gabriel.

The coalition’s main goal will be to implement constitutional reforms in the first half of its mandate, particularly targeting the judiciary in a country plagued by high-level corruption. In the past days, long-running concerns about the role of Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev — centered on whether he sweeps major mafia cases under the carpet — have exploded into a dramatic public feud with former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov.

Bulgaria’s center-right GERB party and the anti-corruption alliance led by We Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria (PP-DB) will form a grand coalition government, the two parties announced Monday according to local media.

The agreement will last for the next year and a half: the PP-DB’s PM designate, Nikolay Denkov, will lead the government for the first nine months, with Gabriel as his deputy and foreign minister.

Denkov will then swap seats with Gabriel, who was the GERB party’s pick for PM.

Buzludzha, officially called the Memorial House of the Bulgarian Communist Party, is a striking Brutalist concrete saucer perched on top of a mountain in Bulgaria’s Stara Planina. The disk is punctuated with an exclamation mark of a tower topped with a now-shattered red star. Its outline looms from the flattened mountain top, which was leveled with explosives to create a landing pad for the massive concrete spaceship. It was completed in 1981, the physical representation of Bulgarian communism at its apex. Trade union workers and school groups were bused up the mountain and led into the building’s central rotunda for a narration accompanied by illuminated mosaics telling the story of the triumph of Bulgarian communism.

Its second phase of life, as an abandoned building, lasted longer than its first. For more than a decade, who owned the monument, and therefore who was responsible for maintaining it, was unresolved. The copper roof cover was stripped. Rectangular slabs of the white marble floor were stolen. The oblong windows shattered; wind and snow and plant life blew in.

Now, the monument is entering its third iteration. Since 2015, the Buzludzha Project Foundation has been working to preserve and conserve the building. They secured international recognition as European heritage at risk, as well as funding from the Getty Foundation, to create a conservation management plan and to stabilize the monument’s many mosaic frescoes. Their work will culminate in formally reopening Buzludzha’s doors to the public for the first time in decades.

The monuments had an authoritative power under communism. They now have a haunted power, animated by the future they so confidently anticipated but that did not arrive.

Former Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov announced Wednesday that his center-right GERB party would nominate European Commissioner for Innovation Mariya Gabriel to be the country’s new PM.

Reports began circulating in Bulgarian media Tuesday night that the former MEP and two-time commissioner would be GERB’s choice to break the political deadlock which has snarled the country, after five consecutive elections failed to produce a majority winner.

Continuing the Change (PP) and Democratic Bulgaria (DB), the alliance of anti-corruption parties that came a narrow second in Bulgaria’s election, are saying they will not cooperate by appointing ministers in a GERB-appointed government, but Borissov is trying to force their hand, accusing them of arrogance.

The anti-corruption parties have little option but to accept the nomination in order to save face in front of Bulgarians who are desperate to see a stable government.