Deputy Finance Minister Metodi Metodiev explained in an interview with BNT what will happen to our salaries and savings after adopting the euro and how the state will control the currency conversion process.
BNT: What do we do if our savings are in cash, especially in the countryside, such cases are common?
- They can go, as I already mentioned, to the Bulgarian National Bank, to any branch of a commercial bank and to all of the approximately 2,700 branches of "Bulgarian Post", respectively, to exchange their levs for euros and this process can last as long as they want. The only difference is that after the first six months, commercial banks and post offices have the opportunity to impose some fees, while the central bank will forever exchange levs for euros, free of charge.
BNT: How will the state exercise control so that there is no fraud, no speculation in stores?
- I can assure you that the institutions are already working on developing various types of action plans, strategies, approaches, based on the latest countries that entered the eurozone - what was their experience, good and bad practices.
BNT: We saw that Croatia's practice of imposing ceilings on food products was wrong, what other lessons did you learn from that?
- One of the main lessons that can be seen, and this is not only in the example of Croatia, is that when the state's abrupt intervention regarding the introduction of food price ceilings, there may be some very short-term effect, but in the long term this has a rather negative impact on the market. Naturally, we expect, and this is a natural process that was observed in Croatia and all other Baltic countries, that in the first month or two there will be some attempt at speculative rounding of prices, but this thing with working efficient supply chains, with working competition in a very short period, the market will clear it.