On Thursday 19 June in Luxembourg, the Eurogroup will welcome Bulgaria’s entry into the euro area, scheduled for January 2026. It will initiate the procedure for appointing its next president, with a view to a decision on Monday 7 July.
Following the positive convergence reports by the European Commission and the ECB (see EUROPE 13653/1), the Eurogroup will welcome Bulgaria’s progress towards euro area membership starting January 2026. In addition to the legislative texts on the table, it is expected to submit a specific recommendation for adoption at a subsequent Ecofin Council.
Presidency. With regard to the Eurogroup Presidency, the ministers will initiate the procedure for submitting candidatures, which will be open until Friday 27 June. At this stage, Ireland’s Paschal Donohoe is standing for re-election for a third two-and-a-half-year mandate. While the former Spanish finance minister, Nadia Calviño, failed to take over the presidency of the Eurogroup in July 2020 (see EUROPE 12524/1), her successor, Carlos Cuerpos, is reportedly testing the chances of a successful bid.
The Eurogroup will also take stock of the macroeconomic situation in the light of the latest geopolitical developments, such as the war between Israel and Iran and the trade tensions provoked by the United States, which are further heightening uncertainty.
“Our baseline scenario is still for growth to pick up, supported by increased spending on defence and infrastructure, a surprisingly robust labour market and favourable financing conditions”, said a European source on Tuesday 17 June. Nevertheless, “new headwinds which were not foreseen are pulling back growth, so the acceleration expected is being postponed”, the source added, saying that it was too early to understand whether this new war would have a negative impact on Europe’s oil and gas supplies.
At the Eurogroup meeting, the IMF will present its assessment of the economic situation in the euro area and make recommendations, including the importance of completing the banking union and monitoring the situation of the shadow banking system. The international financial organisation will also be presenting its second assessment of the stability of the euro area’s financial sector.
In the budgetary field, the Eurogroup will attempt to analyse the way in which national budgets have evolved with the entry into force of the new European fiscal rules and taking account of macroeconomic circumstances. The aim will be to prepare a declaration to be adopted at the beginning of July. No specific decisions will be taken on the budgetary situation of individual countries, as this is the responsibility of the Ecofin Council, which meets on Friday 20 June.
Digital euro. Finally, in an enlarged format, the ministers will be informed of the work in progress on the legislative texts that will enable the ECB to implement the digital euro.
According to this European source, a political agreement in the EU Council is possible by the end of 2025. In the meantime, a number of issues will have to be resolved at political level, such as setting a maximum threshold for holding digital euros.
Finally, it should be noted that the annual meeting of the governors of the European Stability Mechanism, the rescue fund for euro area countries, will also be held in Luxembourg on Thursday. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)