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Bulgaria to join euro area on 1 January 2026

(www.ecb.europa.eu)
257 points toomuchtodo | 1 comments | 09 Jul 25 00:44 UTC | HN request time: 0.198s | source
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smallstepforman ◴[09 Jul 25 05:13 UTC] No.44506514[source]▶
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 ripple through their society becoming poorer. And the bigger foreign corporations can ransack the place. Brilliant.

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1. rsynnott ◴[09 Jul 25 11:14 UTC] No.44508579[source]▶
The UK's nearest neighbour Ireland did. Looking between Britain and Ireland now vs then, you'd definitely want Ireland's rate of growth (ignore GDP, which is massively distorted in Ireland, but look at wage growth) and not the UK's (though realistically the Euro was not a _huge_ factor there either way).

In fact, without the Euro/EMU, Ireland's currency would likely still be tied to Sterling, as it was until 1980. This would be, ah, _not great_, especially at the moment. Clearly, at least in this case, the euro benefited a small country (in particular Ireland was spared the various fiscal shocks that the UK suffered as a result of Brexit and Truss).