Bulgaria to join euro area on 1 January 2026

Post by csomar » Wed, Jul 09, 2025, 5:43 AM UTC

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

Post by skerit » Wed, Jul 09, 2025, 5:45 AM UTC

mynameisbob wrote: post #9

jmyeet wrote: post #2

This will likely come with a one-time significant increase in inflation, at least based on other European countries. When Germany converted to the Euro, the conversion rate was (IIRC) about ~2 DM to the Euro but from what I recall, a lot of everyday things went from costing 7 DM to 7 euro, effectively doubling in price. IIRC France was similar (ie ~6.5 francs to the Euro but 10 Francs went to 3 euro, etc). I've tried…

I was in Belgium the week the Belgian franc converted to Euros. I saw no price changes other than rounding up or down to the nearest Euro equivalent price. If memory serves some stores showed prices in both denominations for a while which would not have allowed for stealth inflation to happen. The currencies were pegged for a period before then so other than niche cases there really weren’t opportunities for massive…

Post by W3zzy » Wed, Jul 09, 2025, 5:51 AM UTC

BlaDeKke wrote: post #20

mynameisbob wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in Belgium the week the Belgian franc converted to Euros. I saw no price changes other than rounding up or down to the nearest Euro equivalent price. If memory serves some stores showed prices in both denominations for a while which would not have allowed for stealth inflation to happen. The currencies were pegged for a period before then so other than niche cases there really weren’t opportunities for massive…

I’m Belgian. This is correct. Even now, some people here still convert euros to francs to get a grasp on the value.

Post by gmueckl » Wed, Jul 09, 2025, 5:53 AM UTC

legulere wrote: post #76

smallstepforman wrote: post #70

If abandoning your own currency and adopting Euros was such a big deal, the UK would have done it decades ago (while it was still a part of the EU). This benefits the bigger economies, at the expense of the smaller economies. Any fiscal policy is dictated by the bigger countries, and with identical currencies, the only policy left for Bulgarians is to cut wages in public sector. This will impact local economy, and ri…

The Bulgarian Lev is already pegged to the euro and was pegged to the DM before

Post by ingohelpinger » Wed, Jul 09, 2025, 5:59 AM UTC

oaiey wrote: post #65

coliveira wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Euro expansion is the mechanism the EU has to export inflation to other countries, similar to the way the US exports inflation with dollar trading across the world. When the easy expansion stops, this is when the debasement will start to occur. The US is already at this point, very soon the dollar will be less valuable as less trading is happening in USD.

I think there are other motives otherwise Bulgaria would say, no thank you. IMHO, the primary motivation is to establish/strengthen the single market and the economic cohesion of the EU. That inflation is a side effect of this (and part of the stabilization) might be the case.