Bulgaria to join euro area on 1 January 2026

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 and Kosovo in the Eurozone: technically they aren't, but for all practical purposes they are.)

It'll also be interesting to see who's next. Czechia is not far off but doesn't seem to be in a hurry, while Romania wants in but still seems to be a ways off. Poland and Hungary will stay outside unless there are major political changes.

My experiences in non-Euro, Schengen countries is that all payment terminals offer me the choice to pay in Euro or the local currency. In many cases in tourist areas (of Czechia, Poland, and Bulgaria) I only encountered terminals that asked for payment in Euro.

Only problem is that there are no deadlines and it's up to the country to make a plan for adopting the euro.

All EU emitted debt goes towards specific projects.

Historically the biggest benefit that was sold as something to outweigh this was a claim that "inflation will be low" and big inflation spikes are impossible. This came about from the short sighted view that all inflation stems from printing money and by giving up our control over it to somebody else we somehow "protect ourselves". This was proven wrong during covid when inflation was vastly different in let's say Latvia and Germany despite sharing a currency.

So what is the bottom line? Is euro all bad? No, it is very useful so we have a common currency in the euro zone that is not controlled from across the ocean. This is a huge benefit, but the same benefit is achieved by having it be a second currency like it is now in Poland rather than the only currency. (you can pay in euros in almost everywhere if you prefer as well as get it from cash machines etc)

The euro has benefited countries like Germany a lot but not necessarily all countries.

However, the benefits of a single currency go beyond cash. It's also about understanding prices. You see a sign for coffee and it's 1199 Hungarian Forint -- or it's 14.99 Polish złoty. It's not clear at all what those numbers mean. Sure it's possible to pull out a currency calculator app to see what the rate is today and what it means in euros. It's not an insurmountable problem, but it is bigger than a mere inconvenience. It's constant friction on not really understanding what's going on. If those coffee prices were instead 2.99 € vs 3.53 €, you would immediately see that the Polish coffee is 20% more expensive.

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As for the payment terminals offering to pay in Euro, as others have already noted, that's a scam. There is a hidden fee, usually around 3.5% - 5.0% of your total, that you get charged for this "convenience". Refusing this and paying in the listed currency will mean that your own bank will do the conversion, which is basically always going to be far cheaper.

Unfortunately this currency conversion scam is so lucrative that even big brands engage in it. Amazon for example asks what currency your card is in. If you select some currency other than what this sepecific Amazon's listed prices are in, well, you're in for another juicy hidden fee, this time to Amazon.

When it comes to exchanging cash, avoid currency exchanges at places like airports, tourist hotspots, etc. as they will usually offer worse rates than elsewhere.

The lack of direct documentation/instructions or link in the terminals to official rules strikes me as horrible ux. You basically just have to be in the know or know who to ask?

But if we talk about Polish-Bulgarian exchanges: Those two countries actually have more or less the same numbers of Euro spent on import and export between each other. Bulgaria doubled export to Poland in just 2 years. Food products are important, but Bulgaria also exports to Poland many metals, mechanical and electrical devices, pharmaceuticals...

The biggest Polish import from Bulgaria in 2023 were almost a billion Euro on guns and ammunition. "Seeds and oily fruits" (whatever is the correct translation) were 20x less than that.

- https://www.gov.pl/web/bulgaria/informator-ekonomiczny4

In Germany, there was a sliver of time where stores essentially taped a piece of paper to terminals with instructions and big red arrows to select a specific scheme because that would benefit the store (and not cost the consumer extra). It didn't really stick, however. I suspect because it was two extra button presses and the consumer wouldn't notice either way.

Granted, I haven't recently been to any EU country without the Euro, but my main bank charges extortionate conversion fees, 2.sth%, with a ridiculous minimum per transaction.

A few months ago, I've ordered something off Amazon UK (while in the UK) and the conversion they offered was very close to the official GBP / EUR exchange rate, way below my bank's minimum. The price wasn't high, either, on the order of 10 €.

Prior to the adoption of the euro, the Danish crown was pegged to the D-mark (since about the mid-1980s), because Germany was the biggest export market for Denmark (still is), and thus having a currency that's stable towards what the Germans are using has been good for Danish exports (less sure how relevant that still is). (Sidebar; had the original motivation of Alternative für Deutschland been successful and abandoned the Euro for a return to the D-mark (neumark?), it would have put Denmark in an awkward position.)

Since then the EU is mostly developing in a wrong direction.

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.

The EU Parliament is directly elected. The EU Council is comprised of EU country head of states, which are all directly elected. The EU Council and EU Parliament then elect the EU Comission.

Sounds democratic to me.

I am strongly pro-euro. Why? Because again, economic consequences are way smaller than most people think, and it's about symbolism. It's about slowly marching towards European Federation instead of NIMBYism that prevents EU from actually living up to its full potential. Imagine a world where the entire European continent is a single political entity - we'd be unquestionable superpower. But no, because "muh independence", and the end result is that we can't do shit on the international stage because we're too busy arguing with each other.

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.

The powerful EU Commission being appointed by governments (and again only approved by the Parliament) is a form of executive federalism. This makes the chain of legitimacy longer and longer which is hardly positive for democracy.

It is more of a bureaucratic technocracy with democratic fig leaves. People often attribute competence to technocracies, but that is an illusion.

Also I don't believe you can move up government function to layers above your national government and still call it representative.

In reality the culture and circumstances of parliament members is too far removed from the voters. I also cannot know the other representatives, so my voting decision will always be restricted to a shallow popularity contest. But as explained, this doesn't matter, because the elected representatives cannot implement any agenda.

But you said yourself, that there are different lavels of directness. That is the core argument where everyone has different expectations.

Also in Europe people use the likes of Revolut to set up virtual native currency accounts on the fly (with IBAN) with FX free transactions up to a certain level per month dependent on tier.

Why would that be a good thing?

Ask Greeks how much they enjoyed ECB involvement.

It's not about passports, it's about border controls within the area. Before Schengen you would have to wait for hours and hours in a queue at the border. Now that border check doesn't exist anymore. The check doesn't exist regardless of what passport you have, there's just nobody there.

Ask Ukraine.

Switzerland can have their own currency, where inflation over 2% is a scandal. Sweden can have their own currency, they produce their own cruisers, submarines, fighter jets, and artillery. Poland kicked out their last baby boom into emigration and now have the same demographic and immigration crisis as geriatric Italy and Germany. They have nuclear power plant company operating with its board receiving executive salaries for fifteen years now and... no nuclear power plants. Accumulated inflation since pre Covid era is 43% and doesn't look to be stopping. Own currency enables enormous fraud and creates class of oligarchs.

Cost is loss of key economic levers, price increases, and potentially less competitive exports.

I don't think a blanket statement like yours holds. Ot works for Germany (unsurprisingly) but some countries suffered.

That's one part of it. The other part is that the country had just as much human capital and economic potential as Western European states, but was held back artificially by the Partitions, WW2, the Soviet Union, and the lack of Marshall Plan investment that Western Europe received.

Sorry, but the narrative of "Poland is only doing well because the EU is helping" (of which German companies are benefitting from tremendously) is a historically narrow way to analyze the situation.

Adopting euro has political consequences, first and foremost, not "symbolical". It is quite sad that people and leaders in our country mostly conflate politics with symbols and gestures, because that is causing us to be what we are - losers.

That’s an odd thing to say when there is a real chance of the commission failing a confidence vote this week. We might end up with a new commission due to the conservatives colluding with the far right to abandon the climate agenda entirely.

This is a very concrete consequence of the voters electing right-wing parliamentarians.

For certain definitions of "success". The 2010s weren't such a great time:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_area_crisis

The EU isn't as integrated (e.g., labour mobility) as other currency areas, and so problems in one region are harder to fix.

> In time things get more expensive much faster in countries that grow faster while incomes stay the same. This is a huge negative and this is on top of price increases happening on "day 1" due to rounding up during conversion.

Could you perhaps expand on this effect, ideally in a mechanistic manner, or point me towards a source that explains the influencing factors and outcomes? I am trying to understand the different processes at hand.

The inability to set monetary policy is a strong argument. Just ask Greece (and Spain):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_area_crisis

And Germany being overzealous in fiscal and monetary policy has stagnated growth and limited policy options. Look at all the rigmarole that had to be done so that Germany could start considering military spending to deal with the new global situation.

(Heck, if Republicans would actually be interested in fiscal discipline, perhaps they should move to Germany.)

I'm not euroskeptic, but does it even matter in the age of ubiquitous digital payments? IMO SEPA is far more important development than cash itself.

Being in the EU without using the Euro has been pretty good for Poland.

That's an interesting perspective. From what I see in the news, the EU isn't as happy with the outcome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_material_losses_during_...

What part of the EU and ECB is not democratic?

The commission is elected by the parliament. This is democratic.

Would it be an improvement if parliament could propose laws and commission members. Maybe. But saying that this makes the EU undemocratic is unreasonable.

For people themselves, they're not so keen either as they know well adopting euro was abused in other countries to increase prices (and not just round them up a bit). So basically nobody wants it, even if there are a few real benefits of joining, such as potentially lower mortgage rates which are among the highest in the EU).