Bulgaria to join euro area on 1 January 2026

I hope Bulgaria and the EU have learned from past mistakes (I don't think they have). While EU and the Euro had good intentions and prospect, it turned out to be a disaster for some of us. Greece is in a recession for more than 16 years now, with no visible exit, because (one of many reasons of course) it couldn't devalue its currency back in 2009.

Now we might speculate that Greece couldn't have avoided this, even if it weren't for the Euro, but having lived this from the inside, I think that it wouldn't be that painful.

Countries like Japan, Italy and even USA nowdays, have comparable debt to GDP indexes, but none of them (as far as I undestand) have had this kind of dorp in living standards, price inflation or increase in poverty rates since 2008.

Best of luck to our Bulgarian neighbours. They are going to need it!

The Greek economy is still in recession? The EC seems to think it is doing fairly well: https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/economic-surveillance-e...

Certainly better than Germany (however comparable the two economies can be): https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/economic-surveillance-e...

> Greece is in a recession for more than 16 years now, with no visible exit, because (one of many reasons of course) it couldn't devalue its currency back in 2009.

Greece is not in a recession, it hasn't been in one for a while. It's in austerity mode which I do agree it's a too blunt of a tool to use for recovery but alas those were the terms for Greece to get a bailout after its debt mismanagement (including lying in their official government reports for many years).

> Now we might speculate that Greece couldn't have avoided this, even if it weren't for the Euro, but having lived this from the inside, I think that it wouldn't be that painful.

And why do you think that? It's a small country, with a small economy, accruing so much debt that wasn't used for development which in turn didn't generate taxes in return. Notwithstanding the cultural practice of tax evasion, it was going to implode either way.

It would be probably as painful, or more painful, to be shackled to the IMF's terms (which always have included austerity) while holding your own currency which would be quasi-worthless because no one wants to buy your bonds unless you paid massive interests. Debt repayment premiums would be a massive headache either way in the Greek budget (with or without the euro), devaluing your own currency would create a lot of pain for the people since Greece imports a lot of more advanced stuff from other EU members, and also would erode all savings from a relatively old population.

I don't agree with the austerity bullshit, just to be clear, but I don't think there was any solution that wouldn't be painful, maybe different pains but it was never going to be much better.

I say that as someone who lived through multiple Brazilian crisis, including four currency changes to tackle hyperinflation, lived under IMF-imposed terms.

I understand the pain but in both cases (Brazil, and Greece) the absolute mismanagement of the state's finances for decades required bowing down to the powers that be (IMF, ECB, etc.) to save the country from bankruptcy.

Maybe the word recession was not accurate. Also Germany is a highly developed country, so it's expected to have minimal growth. Greece should be compared to other developing economies in Europe (mostly pre-communist states), and that comparison is eye-popping...

The real economy, the one that affects people's lives, is still something like 25% below what was pre-2009. In essence people are still 25% poorer than they were before 2009. That's the worst recession EVER recorded in recent history. Worse than the 1930s.

That's why Greece is only slightly above Bulgaria (yet) in real purchasing power compared to other EU countries.

Don't get me wrong. There were a lot of benefits for most of the EU countries, but the lack of common economic strategy, and regulation prooved catastrophic for some.

Maybe so, but we are both speculating on this. However the truth of what happened with the Euro is devastating.

Also the IMF was also part of the Greek debt restructuring deal, so it wasn't that different from what Brazil or other countries have experienced.

I am not against the Euro, far from it. But the EU could have handled this crisis much better for the benefit of both Greece and itself. The Greek economy wouldn't have collapsed, and the anti-Euro sentiment which led to the rise of ultra-right-wing parties in EU wouldn't grow that much.