Bulgaria to join euro area on 1 January 2026

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 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.

I think there's a reality for (visiting) consumers, Schengen has more value than the currency union, at least if you're not a user of cash.

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.

Payment terminals can offer whatever currency exchanges they want, but usually it's just a way to fleece you on the spread, nobody is doing you any favors, it's just that whoever in the chain gets to perform the exchange gets to set the fees and the spread and most people get confused by currency exchange so it's in every middle man of the chain's interest to be the one to perform it and get the spread themselves.

While currency exchange offices are honest and fair?