Bulgaria and the euro Bulgaria and the euro Bulgaria committed to switching its currency, the lev, to the euro upon its joining the European Union in 2007, as stated in its EU accession treaty. The transition will occur once the country meets all the euro convergence criteria; it currently meets three of the five criteria, the exception being its membership for at least two years of the EU's official exchange rate mechanism (ERM II), which it has not yet joined despite the Bulgarian lev having been pegged to the euro since its introduction in 1999. In 2011 Bulgaria's Minister of Finance Simeon Djankov stated
Currency union Currency union A currency union (also known as monetary union) involves two or more states sharing the same currency without them necessarily having any further integration (such as an economic and monetary union, which would have, in addition, a customs union and a single market). Three types of currency unions exist: The theory of the optimal currency area addresses the question of how to determine what geographical regions should share a currency in order to maximize economic efficiency. Note: Every customs and monetary union and economic and monetary union also has a currency union. Additionally the autonomous and dependent territories,