Bulgaria will not join the eurozone in January 2024 as planned.

Bulgarian Finance Minister Rositsa Velkova said the new target date for adopting the euro is January 1, 2025.

Velkova also said that the reason for the postponement was that the parliament has not passed the necessary legislative changes, including reforms within the anti-money laundering framework, and Bulgaria does not meet the inflation criterion. She also stated that "our European partners believe that Bulgaria is lagging behind with the adoption of legislation. "

According to AFP, Bulgaria was going to introduce the euro in 2024, but that decision has now been postponed until 2025.

Bulgaria is currently following a tough cost-cutting program in which the national currency, the lev, is pegged to the euro by''fixed exchange rate.

The decision to pull back from joining the eurozone comes ahead of the fifth parliamentary elections in two years on April 2.

In early January, Velkova warned that legislative changes not passed could delay Bulgaria's accession to the eurozone. However, the measures were never adopted.

Velkova also said that Bulgaria would not submit its convergence report at the end of February, and that the deadline to start joining the eurozone in''2024 has also been withdrawn.