Bulgaria May Join Euro Zone Fiscal Union – European Council
Bulgaria and another eight EU members may join the fiscal stability union of the 17 euro zone states designed to pursue strong fiscal discipline, the Council of the European Union said.
At a series of working sessions of the European Council held at the end of last week, the euro zone states reached an agreement on short-term action to overcome the debt crisis and negotiated new fiscal compact for the euro area.
"The Heads of State or Government of Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Sweden indicated the possibility to take part in this process after consulting their Parliaments where appropriate," the Council said in a statement.
U.K. is the only EU member that opted not to join the fiscal treaty.
The fiscal compact will be signed no later than March.
Along with other measures, the euro area and other member states will consider providing additional resources for the International Monetary Fund of up to 200 billion euro ($270 billion), in the form of bilateral loans, to ensure that the IMF has adequate resources to deal with the crisis to fund bailouts.