Linguistic Issue
Bulgarian uses Cyrillic. The current design of euro banknotes has the word euro written in both the Latin and Greek alphabets. The same is true of euro coins, but if the Greek model is followed, the alternative spelling will go on the national (obverse) side. In popular Bulgarian usage the currency is referred to as евро (from Bulgarian Европа, meaning Europe); the plural varies in spoken language – евро, евра, еврота – but the most widespread form is евро – without inflection in plural. The word for euro, though, has a normal form with the postpositive definite article – еврото (the euro).
The word for eurocent is евроцент and most probably that, or only цент, will be used in future when the European currency is accepted in Bulgaria. In contrast to euro, the word for “cent” has a full inflection both in the definite and the plural form: евроцент (basic form), евроцентът (full definite article – postpositive), евроцентове (plural), 2 евроцента (numerative form – after numerals). The word stotinki (стотинки), singular stotinka (стотинка), the name of the subunit of the current Bulgarian currency can be used in place of cent, as it has become a synonym of the word “coins” in colloquial Bulgarian; just like “cent” (from Latin centum), its etymology is from a word meaning hundred – “sto” (сто). Stotinki is used widely in the Bulgarian diaspora in Europe to refer to subunits of currencies other than the Bulgarian lev.
Initially, the ECB and the EU Commission insisted that Bulgaria change the name it uses for the currency from ЕВРО to ЕУРО, claiming the currency should have an official and standard spelling across the EU. Bulgaria on the other hand stated that it wants to take into account the different alphabet and the principle of phonetic orthography in the Bulgarian language.
The issue was decisively resolved in favour of Bulgaria at the 2007 EU Summit in Lisbon, allowing Bulgaria to use the Cyrillic spelling евро on all official EU documents.
As of 13 December 2007, all EU institutions – including the ECB – use ЕВРО as the official Bulgarian transliteration of the single European currency.
Read more about this topic: Bulgaria And The Euro
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