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Bulgaria to join euro area on 1 January 2026

(www.ecb.europa.eu)
256 points toomuchtodo | 1 comments | 09 Jul 25 00:44 UTC | HN request time: 0.307s | source
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decimalenough ◴[09 Jul 25 03:03 UTC] No.44506006[source]▶
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.

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Roark66 ◴[09 Jul 25 06:12 UTC] No.44506791[source]▶
Polish here, very much against adopting the euro until our standard of living and growth rate matches Germany (no at least not for next 10 years). Why? Because the disadvantages far out weight the benefits for developing countries. The biggest issue is giving up one of the biggest instrument of control over the economy to a supra-national non-democratic organisation. Surely the monetary policy will follow what is best for the biggest economies (or at best the average) while local policy is way better tweaked towards local needs. The best example of this is money supply. The money supply ideally should match the economy growth rate +X so there is tiny inflation (and definitely no deflation). This growth rate is very different in "old EU" and "new EU" countries. So what happens? 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.

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)

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1. rhubinak ◴[09 Jul 25 12:48 UTC] No.44509413[source]▶
Slovak here living in Czechia. Adopting euro would give you a seat at the ECB granting influence over monetary policy in the whole Eurozone. You'd also get cheaper money (think mortgage rates going from ~7% (current rates in Poland) to less than 4% (current rates in Slovakia)). Do you have to exchange money when traveling abroad? Now imagine buying/selling stuff abroad as a company and multiply that by a lot. You get the picture. For countries that deal mostly with Eurozone based countries (which are most countries in Europe) you get massive savings that'll make the country more attractive to outside investors. Any potential price increase would be dwarfed by the rise in wages. All of this happened in Slovakia (and would be great to happen in Czechia if not for previous eurosceptic governments that massaged public opinion heavily). Sadly, the successive corrupt governments of Robert Fico ate many of the benefits to ordinary folks and Russian propaganda machine left some people questioning the value of euro and EU membership. But even 15+ years after adopting € the approval rating in Slovakia is very strong. All of this would be much worse without the euro. Personally, I'm all for everything that gets Europe closer to federalization and strengthens it.