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Bulgaria to join euro area on 1 January 2026

ecb.europa.eu

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Re: Bulgaria to join euro area on 1 January 2026

#201

Post by debesyla »

perching_aix wrote: post #122
ReptileMan wrote: post #115

Probably a bad idea. The big economies of the eurozone have been in constant stagnation for the last 15 years. To me it seems that Bulgaria has jumped on Titanic on Qweenstown. I do hope that I am wrong, but those are the same people that made the plastic caps permanently attached to the bottles.

> but those are the same people that made the plastic caps permanently attached to the bottles It's still hilarious to me how upset people are at this (or at least pretend to be).

Have you even been in the parks and forests before, haha? :-D At least in Lithuania there were lots of caps lost - half of cleaning up the parks time was bending to pick out caps out of the dirt. Not anymore.

It's similar to free plastic bags or deposit system for bottles. Inconvenience is so tiny that no person genuinely complain about that (not for social karma/attention), but economically when there were millions of bags and half a million bottles sold every day...

To put it into HN-themed metaphor, reducing error log verbosity matters too, when you have millions of lines.

Re: Bulgaria to join euro area on 1 January 2026

#202

Post by blub »

ako wrote: post #62
ingohelpinger wrote: post #43

the Euro has lost almost half of its purchasing power since its creation. bulgarians want the Euro so much, that they have to run tv ads, "we will become more wealthy by introducing the Euro", what? how will that happen, if you need more money to buy same or less products/services? lmao

Same for USD and other major currencies, as most countries have inflation around 2%. Only currency that has done significantly better is the swiss frank.

Through some technicality maybe it’s that, but food prices have increased by a large double-digit percentage. Construction materials (and laborers) are stupidly expensive.

Re: Bulgaria to join euro area on 1 January 2026

#203

Post by raspasov »

petesergeant wrote: post #10
isodev wrote: post #3

Nice. It’s amazing to see the progress Bulgarians have made in the last 20 years after joining the EU. I can imagine it hasn’t been an easy process.

Two things that surprised me when I spent a couple of months in Bulgaria: * Bulgarian support for the EU is pretty low and people didn't think it made their life much better * Bulgarian support for Russia is very high, like 50%, probably due to their historic help in kicking out the Turks

Bulgaria has an internal coherence problem. There are brilliant people but also many who believe bullshit communist fairytales.

1. Many people have unrealistic expectations. In reality, no one is coming to save you, and 99% of the time, you need to save yourself.

2. The Russian propaganda story was taught in schools from 1945 to 1990 and beyond. When I was in elementary school in the 90s, it was still taught by inertia. I would bet it's still taught today, 2025 (!), in some shape or form. Yes, Russian actions in the late 1800s had the side-effect of liberating Bulgaria, but by all historical accounts, that was bound to happen since the Ottoman Empire was falling apart.

The most significant action taken by Russia (the Soviet Union) was the occupation of Bulgaria following World War II. The resulting communist regime initially jailed or killed any person who dared speak against it. This is not commonly taught or talked about in the country, even today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Court_(Bulgaria)

Credentials: I am Bulgarian.

Re: Bulgaria to join euro area on 1 January 2026

#204

Post by menaerus »

perching_aix wrote: post #161
ReptileMan wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is inconvenience for all, with at best minimal benefits, but it makes couple of bureaucrats and greens feel good about themselves. People are upset because it shows Brussels disfunction in a nutshell.

But it really isn't that inconvenient at all, and some of the caps are outright better now than the crap that preceded them. Bit like how the toilet water use regulations turned out. I even find myself vaguely annoyed now whenever I drink from glass bottles, that those caps are loose. > People are upset because it shows Brussels disfunction Reminds me to that meme where the debated point is what OS is better, and the…

It's a taxpayer's money so why wouldn't the taxpayers have a point if they think that their money is not spent best and, in the context of the global situation, not really efficient at all in making the quality of life of EU citizens any better?

To paraphrase this differently: if I as an investor gave you 100M EUR and 24 months, would you be happy to spend it for changing a frigging cap on the bottle or would you rather invest that money and time+people resources on something else?

Re: Bulgaria to join euro area on 1 January 2026

#205

Post by ifwinterco »

consp wrote: post #192
Svip wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the powers that be want the euro, but the people didn't. They were asked in 1992, 1993 and 2000; and effectively they said no to the euro every time (yes, I know; in 1993, the euro was specifically opted out, but the fact that it was approved when the year before a referendum with the euro was rejected suggests – at least partially – that it was a rejection of the euro (among other things)). Denmark th…

This all reads as symbolic nationalist policies with an added burocracy thus costing more than it should. "We need own coin to control [insert nationalist thing here]" but in practice you won't and never did. The last time I was in Denmark my bank nicely charged me for the conversion despite the coin being fixed to the euro. It is just a money costing machine which adds no value.

If (when?) there's another Euro crisis, being pegged gives you a lot more room to manoeuvre than being actually in the Euro. If necessary de-pegging would be disruptive but very much possible, if you're fully in the Euro then you are riding the train to its destination whether you like it or not

Re: Bulgaria to join euro area on 1 January 2026

#206

Post by knorker »

lmm wrote: post #155
beAbU wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the one hand, countries with different economic strengths having the same currency managed centrally isn't ideal. Isn't this kind of what the US is doing though?

The US has a much more integrated economy - businesses operate nationwide, employees routinely move across the country, and most economic policy is set centrally. And even then there are still downsides where e.g. interest rates set to suit the national economy exacerbate the problems of the rust belt.

> businesses operate nationwide, employees routinely move across the country

Could you elaborate on what you mean? I've not run a business, but from the people I know who do complain similarly about cross-EU and cross-US-state business.

Like the company based in Texas who got their first employee in New York. Suddenly they needed some sort of presence in New York State, get a separate insurance, and accountants for New York State. (federal, state, and city income tax). They have to really want that employee.

From what I've heard, selling across state lines is fine in either case. Getting employees / expanding into new state is in both cases a big deal. Withdrawing (presence, not sales) from a US state is spoken about similarly to if it's a new country.

Re: Bulgaria to join euro area on 1 January 2026

#207

Post by mmarq »

Roark66 wrote: post #108
decimalenough wrote: post #22

Credit where credit is due: the EU gets a lot of flack for being bureaucratic, hidebound, sclerotic, whatever, but the single currency has been a success and it's still expanding, 26 years after its creation. Also, the addition of Bulgaria means it's almost possible to travel from Spain to Greece entirely through the Eurozone, with only a thin sliver of Serbia or Macedonia in the way. (Assuming we include Montenegro…

Polish here, very much against adopting the euro until our standard of living and growth rate matches Germany (no at least not for next 10 years). Why? Because the disadvantages far out weight the benefits for developing countries. The biggest issue is giving up one of the biggest instrument of control over the economy to a supra-national non-democratic organisation. Surely the monetary policy will follow what is bes…

> The biggest issue is giving up one of the biggest instrument of control over the economy to a supra-national non-democratic organisation

This is the point. Germany managed to set up a really independent central bank (which is a non- democratic, bureaucratic, etc… thingy) and inflation was at the target for decades. Italy, France, etc… didn’t, and inflation was 2-3 point above target and above the German levels. So they joined the Euro, which has a governance very similar to the Deutsche Mark.

To this day, inflation in European countries outside the Eurozone is higher.

Re: Bulgaria to join euro area on 1 January 2026

#208

Post by piva00 »

mrtksn wrote: post #164
shakow wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> others say it was poorly managed suppression of a rebellion in a dying empire I don't think many say that at all outside of Turkey/Azerbaijan/Pakistan.

True, I'm also inclined to believe that it started as a suppression attempt that ended up being a genocide as "an easy solution" to make a problem go away as the dying empire wasn't able to contain it. I recall reading the communications of some Ottoman officials trying to cash out the life insurance policies of the Armenians. Pure evil, honestly.

In that sense the Holocaust was also the "easy solution" to "make the problem go away" when deporting Jews (and other minorities) became too much of a hassle for the Nazis.

They didn't start with the idea of "let's kill everyone", it built up from the 1930s process to deport "undesirables", when it became too much work they decided to kill everyone instead.

Genocide is genocide, doesn't matter the seed that started it.

Re: Bulgaria to join euro area on 1 January 2026

#209

Post by wiseowise »

epolanski wrote: post #113
csomar wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bulgaria economy and the average citizen quality of life are not that correlated. You can have one improving while the other is deteriorating. We saw what happened in the US when such a gap became wide enough.

By many metrics (life expectancy, inequality, literacy, poverty rates) the US is a third world country.

You must be American. Only Americans hate their country that much.

Re: Bulgaria to join euro area on 1 January 2026

#210

Post by avtolik »

decimalenough wrote: post #47
nine_k wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't the lev pinned to euro for years, at the stable rate of 1 lev = 0.5 euro? Why the switching to euro would affect inflation much?

It's pinned at 1.95583 to the euro, not 2. If a merchant has a product that sells for 2 lev today, and they sell it for 1 euro tomorrow, they just increased the price by a bit over 2%.

No, in your example this will be a reduction of the price.
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