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.
cik · 23m ago
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.
druskacik · 15m ago
It's usually better to pay in the local currency than Euro. The currency still has to be exchanged somewhere, and the banks usually have better rates than the terminal operators.
crossroadsguy · 52m ago
I have always felt it was a mistake allowing countries inside the EU but not the currency. But when one looks at the dates - and they are 6 years apart - it becomes clear why. I wonder how it would have turned out had Euro and EU been launched together. Would it have been "a package" or optional?
jochem9 · 21m ago
All EU countries are required to join the euro. This was agreed in the 1992 Maastricht treaty when the EU was founded (and the EMU, which was the starting point of the euro). Only Denmark and the UK negotiated an opt-out at the time.
Only problem is that there are no deadlines and it's up to the country to make a plan for adopting the euro.
ingohelpinger · 18m ago
the same treaty says state financing through the ECB is illegal, but they do it anyway.
flimflamm · 1h ago
Except if you are a Finnish person who lives right next to Sweden (SEK) and Norway (NOK) who are not using Euro (and Russia but that's a different story).
lawn · 38m ago
I live in Sweden at the border of Finland and there's very little issues with crossing the border and paying in another currency.
The crazy thing is that it was US pressure on Europe in the late '90s that led to adoption of the euro.
oaiey · 1h ago
I am not aware of this. Can you give us a hint what that was?
oaiey · 23m ago
Euro was part of the Maastricht treaty which formed the EU as we know it today in 1992. The euro part was a power move of France against a reunited Germany which back story origins in the early 80s. Obviously backfired.
One of the biggest effects of this will probably be increased Western tourism to the resort cities on the Black Sea coast. Which is good, I guess, for the local economy - but I did really enjoy how Burgas felt different from the typical Western coastal resort city when I visited. I hope it doesn’t lose that uniqueness as it integrates into the wider EU economy.
alexey-salmin · 1h ago
I haven't been to Burgas but Montenegro still feels rather different IMO. Probably it has to do more with local culture and with GDP per capita rather than the currency itself (even though you're right that the latter may slowly evolve thanks to easier inflow of money).
keiferski · 25m ago
Depends on where you’re at in Montenegro. Parts of it are definitely still different (the capital, Ulcinj and the south, rural areas) but some of the coastal cities are becoming very generic global luxury stores and mass tourism.
At least - that was my experience spending a couple months there 2-3 years ago.
W3zzy · 15m ago
True, it felt a whole lot like Croatia near the coast of Montenegro save for the complemantairy ketchup they offer with pizza.
blahedo · 1h ago
Random observation: I remember seeing the second round of euro bills and momentarily thinking, "EBPO? cool, but why did they add Cyrillic to the design?"
It was specifically for Bulgaria, the only EU country to use the Cyrillic alphabet. Eurozone membership was a distant thought at that point, but they knew they'd be in eventually. Now's the time!
darkhorn · 48m ago
Because they wrote ΕΥΡΩ specifically only for Greece, the only country to use Greek alphabet.
Gare · 35m ago
Technically, 2 EU countries: Greece and Cyprus.
darkhorn · 31m ago
Right but back then Cyprus was not an EU member.
isodev · 4h ago
Nice. It’s amazing to see the progress Bulgarians have made in the last 20 years after joining the EU. I can imagine it hasn’t been an easy process.
petesergeant · 3h ago
Two things that surprised me when I spent a couple of months in Bulgaria:
* Bulgarian support for the EU is pretty low and people didn't think it made their life much better
* Bulgarian support for Russia is very high, like 50%, probably due to their historic help in kicking out the Turks
mrtksn · 1h ago
It’s also more of a generation thing though. The older people are nostalgic about the past and their youth and for a country that experienced 2 decades of very low birth rates that’s the 70s and 80s and those years are under the communist rule and very good years for Bulgaria as the country was experiencing economic boom from computers and electronics manufacturing.
Also, under under the Communist rule supported by USSR, they indoctrinated people into a version of history that Turks are the absolute evil, and Russians are the absolute angels saving them from the ottomans.
I.e. in pre-EU era it was called Ottoman slavery, later they start calling it Ottoman era as it was more accurate as Ottoman’s system was based on collecting taxes and resources from the conquered places when giving them plenty of autonomy. Obviously not ideal but far from slavery.
throwpoaster · 12m ago
Unless you were Armenian.
mrtksn · 3m ago
Not at all, Armenians were also an integral part of the Ottoman society and that’s how you still have plenty of Armenian cultural heritage in modern Turkey. You must be referring to the events around WW1 that led the loss of huge numbers of the Armenians through atrocities committed by the Ottomans which some say that it was a genocide, others say it was poorly managed suppression of a rebellion in a dying empire.
mc32 · 3h ago
Also the experience of Greece not too far back and the austerity imposed by Germany is not quite forgotten. Varoufakis[1] can attest to its severity. The Greeks voted against it but Germany imposed its will.
This is a very distant view for the reasons behind the crisis in Greece and for sure the government of 2015 was not a victim.
In the context of this thread, Bulgarians as Greeks before them, enjoy the money from the EU but don’t like the responsibility that comes from it, to reform, to also contribute and that you lose the own currency perks while you gain on other fronts.
Of course there is a lot more here to discuss but this is my experience being a Greek in Greece.
W3zzy · 12m ago
The government was not the victim in deed. But up until today you can see the results amongst the population. You can Prune for growt or you can just cut the plant to the ground hoping it will survive.
spookie · 2h ago
You know, there's Greece and Portugal. Mentioning these two as they got Troika following them.
Portugal managed to get out of the storm, and debt is now below GDP.
Greece took many bad steps trying to recover. And its debt shows that. Their governments have had a big part of the blame. Hell, at one point they didnt have enough money for citizens to withdraw from banks.
And that was before Troika.
Ygg2 · 58m ago
> And its debt shows that. Their governments have had a big part of the blame. Hell, at one point they didnt have enough money for citizens to withdraw from banks.
Sure but so do the creditors. If you keep giving mortgages to anyone with a drivers license that's on you buddy.
At almost no point is there enough money for citizens to withdraw their money. Modern banks don't keep their assets as cash.
dkjaudyeqooe · 2h ago
This is nonsense. Not mentioned is that Greece has borrowed excessively and had defaulted on its loans. A bailout was organized by the EU and IMF with terms that Greece had every opportunity to reject. No one forced anything on Greece. The referendum was not binding and political theater for the government of the time.
That Greece accepted the terms reflected the reality that the alternative was much worse and would have caused great suffering for Greeks.
ingohelpinger · 1h ago
100% true.
mc32 · 1h ago
What choice did Greece have? Germany was not extending favorable terms, they were punitive, so what choice did they have but take the least awful choice? Syriza tried but Germany had the upper hand and of course didn't give an inch --though Syriza tried very hard.
Varoufakis would argue the severe terms imposed by the creditors/negotiators exacerbated the fiscal issue. Yes Greece had issues but the creditors's terms exacerbated the problem, made things worse.
It's kind of like borrowing from a loan shark to pay off debts --on average, you're better off not. But hey, once you take it, you either pay up, or you lose something dear to you.
isodev · 3h ago
And yet, Greece recovered to become a leading economy in the region. The propaganda is strong on the airwaves these days, just like in the US, one shouldn’t react to “facts” taken out of context.
It seems (from here), support for Russia is somehow magically going down as Russia’s economy is having trouble paying for its “support” abroad.
jazzyjackson · 3h ago
In which region is Greece a leading economy?
dr_kretyn · 2h ago
In a region composed of Greece, North Macedonia and Cyprus.
> And yet, Greece recovered to become a leading economy in the region
I don't think that's true ... growth is good, but that's because there's a lot of catching up to do. If I remember correctly (and maybe I don't) then real GDP is still like -20% vs 2007, debt is EU-leading at like 150% of GDP, unemployment remains high, and wages remain low.
ingohelpinger · 1h ago
have you seen the roads? lol
smallstepforman · 29m ago
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.
Maxion · 15m ago
I wonder why this comment is at the top of the HN post.
Over the years I've seen a lot of missinformation on this topic that follows pretty much this exact train of thought. Why would countries join the EU and the Euro if it didn't benefit them?
The baltics have all grown massively since the 90s when they became independent, and even though they all were on nice trajectories they still all decided to join the EU and the Euro.
Bringing up the UK as some model for all other "small" european countrie sounds odd. The UK joined the EEC specifically because it had slower economic growth than the other large EU countries.
The UK, and specifically the city of london, with its huge international financial pull has a very different place in the global economy than Bulgaria...
ingohelpinger · 1m ago
debt unions never work.
legulere · 21m ago
The Bulgarian Lev is already pegged to the euro and was pegged to the DM before
v5v3 · 1h ago
On the one hand, countries with different economic strengths having the same currency managed centrally isn't ideal.
But on the other hand, anything that reduces the domination of the US dollar is welcome.
jmyeet · 4h ago
This will likely come with a one-time significant increase in inflation, at least based on other European countries.
When Germany converted to the Euro, the conversion rate was (IIRC) about ~2 DM to the Euro but from what I recall, a lot of everyday things went from costing 7 DM to 7 euro, effectively doubling in price. IIRC France was similar (ie ~6.5 francs to the Euro but 10 Francs went to 3 euro, etc).
I've tried searching for any studies on this to see if the effect was measured and, if so, whether it held with later countries joining the euro.
I'm a little surprised that the euro has been this stable for this long (going on 30 years). Finland debated leaving. IT's debated if there's even a legal mechanism to leave. We still have the problem that the ECB sets eurozone monetary policy with Germany and Greece being vastly different economies.
mynameisbob · 3h ago
I was in Belgium the week the Belgian franc converted to Euros. I saw no price changes other than rounding up or down to the nearest Euro equivalent price. If memory serves some stores showed prices in both denominations for a while which would not have allowed for stealth inflation to happen.
The currencies were pegged for a period before then so other than niche cases there really weren’t opportunities for massive price increases.
W3zzy · 1m ago
Belgium had double denominations for about two years. My mother owned a business at that time and she used the occasion to correct the prices a bit bit that was only because she lagged a bit on inflation.
Scoundreller · 42m ago
> I saw no price changes other than rounding up or down to the nearest Euro equivalent price
Dunno about Belgium but what I notice in French supermarkets is that prices aren’t rounded at all. 10k SKUs will have 10k different prices (ish).
Plain frozen pizza? 4,62 EUR.
Same with pepperoni? 4,92 EUR
Domestic 500mL beer? 1,14 EUR
Fancier beer? 1,81 EUR
lttlrck · 1h ago
I remember the rounding up in Germany. But that was the extent of it. It was a one time event and wasn't difficult to absorb.
oaiey · 1h ago
Did not happen in Germany either. Inflation and price hikes came but later. And had nothing to do with currency system but were overdue price adjustments or greed of companies.
BlaDeKke · 2h ago
I’m Belgian. This is correct. Even now, some people here still convert euros to francs to get a grasp on the value.
Aeolun · 2h ago
This feels odd to me. The only people I can really see doing this is ones that were 70+ when the Euro was introduced.
jochem9 · 10m ago
In the Netherlands there was a brief spike of inflation, but that was due to rounding up, definitely not converting 1 NLG to 1 EUR.
The inflation did correct itself the years after (aka lower than usual). The perception with many people still is that the euro made everything more expensive, but that's only based on feelings. The inflation numbers tell a different story.
joules77 · 3h ago
Covid sort of showed everyone how hard it is to survive as a small economy in the modern highly interdependent world.
One small disruptor to a core component of a small economy and they are standing outside the IMF to survive.
There are currently 50-60 small countries that depend on borrowing from the IMF (that too in dollars paying interest in dollars - given competition levels guess what dollar generating capacities small economies have? They end up economic vassals of larger systems or selling off national assets or being used in geopolitical games).
On the other hand look at China and India. They have more provinces/states than the EU and larger populations. Vastly differently economies spanning all those subunits. Yet you wont find any of those subunits complaining about their central bank setting monetary policy.
Why? Cuz look at the surroundings - Sri Lanka/Pakistan/Myanmar/Bangladesh/Thailand/Indonesia/even South Korea all at one point or another requiring the IMF to step in and bail them out when they ran into trouble.
The world is too complex and fast/ever changing and small economies are increasingly dependent on larger economies to manage the unknowns and unpredictability that lie ahead. Its almost become impossible to survive by themselves. Sort of like running a book store in the era of Amazon.
chrismorgan · 2h ago
> Yet you wont find any of those subunits complaining about their central bank setting monetary policy.
This is ludicrously wrong of India, and I understand enough of human nature and economics that I’d be surprised if it were true of China, though it may be more suppressed.
Monetary policy is government policy. The ruling party is seldom uniformly popular across their entire domain. Perhaps you’re more familiar with US politics: broadly, rural is Republican, urban is Democrat. In India, the ruling party BJP has a lot of the north, but not so much of the south or east. Accordingly, you should expect dissent from regions with a different state government. And as for socioeconomic disparity between states, rich may complain if they seem to be subsidising poor, poor may complain if they don’t seem to be getting enough attention.
joules77 · 2h ago
But is anyone asking for their own local currency or central bank? If not why not?
chrismorgan · 1h ago
In some places I gather that pretty much happened during https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Indian_banknote_demonetis.... (I happened to be in India at the time, but where I was it was more just extreme discontent with resignation, rather than threatening fracture.)
ingohelpinger · 4m ago
Bulgaria is still around so are other countries without the deluded euro. lol
petesergeant · 2h ago
> Yet you wont find any of those subunits complaining about their central bank setting monetary policy
I mean and also the US, but the key difference here is that those are also cohesive countries where wealth transfers between different areas is the norm. Much less problematic if a policy is better for New York than Alabama if you know for sure that the federal government is going to make sure Alabama doesn't get screwed.
In the EU you have the opposite problem: policies that benefit rich countries will result in the rich countries complaining about how they support the other economies and moralizing.
joules77 · 2h ago
Ofcourse they will complain but they also learn to stay rich and be a large power you have to pay attention to the needs of others. If you don't, others will step into that space and the less others depend on you, the less relevant you become. Its like a learning process that takes its own sweet time.
mrtksn · 50m ago
Soon all the prices will be listed in both of the currencies and they will be kept as that for another six months after the adoption.
The country already experienced quite a bit of inflation last years, regardless of not being in the euro. I don’t see why the change of the currency that is already pegged to euro since the creation of Euro will cause any inflation beyond the rounding and the rounding is for 1:1.95583 and that often provides rounding sown incentive as 4.99 becoming 2.04 and 4.49 becoming 2.2957
A more realistic concern can be that Bulgaria might start borrowing irresponsibly. Currently Bulgaria's debt to GDP is just around %22, which is very low.
nine_k · 2h ago
Wasn't the lev pinned to euro for years, at the stable rate of 1 lev = 0.5 euro? Why the switching to euro would affect inflation much?
decimalenough · 1h ago
It's pinned at 1.95583 to the euro, not 2. If a merchant has a product that sells for 2 lev today, and they sell it for 1 euro tomorrow, they just increased the price by a bit over 2%.
decimalenough · 1h ago
Missing piece of info: the official conversion rate is 1.95583 per euro. It will be extremely tempting for merchants to use 2:1 instead.
The situation was literally identical in Germany, where the official rate was also precisely 1.95583 to the euro (because the lev used to be tied to the DM at 1:1), but not so in most other European countries.
exactly, Bulgarian here, born in Germany in 1988, so I lived with the DM and then experienced the Euro throughout my entire life, until 2023 when I decided to go back to BG. The Euro will make BG a debt slave on Germanys and France terms. Watch critical infrastructure being sold to China or who knows, just like Greece had to do it.
akmarinov · 28m ago
Since Bulgaria was already in a currency board with the Euro, they already were a “debt slave”, so nothing changes there.
ingohelpinger · 2m ago
it seems you are not understanding how dent unions work. lol
t_tsonev · 55m ago
Finally, some quality fearmongering on Hacker News /s
coliveira · 3h ago
The Euro expansion is the mechanism the EU has to export inflation to other countries, similar to the way the US exports inflation with dollar trading across the world. When the easy expansion stops, this is when the debasement will start to occur. The US is already at this point, very soon the dollar will be less valuable as less trading is happening in USD.
oaiey · 38m ago
I think there are other motives otherwise Bulgaria would say, no thank you. IMHO, the primary motivation is to establish/strengthen the single market and the economic cohesion of the EU. That inflation is a side effect of this (and part of the stabilization) might be the case.
aopwiejfpoieajf · 3h ago
Even though the Bulgarian lev has been pegged to the Euro for decades at this point?
dotancohen · 3h ago
Just as the Mark and the Franc were.
aopwiejfpoieajf · 3h ago
Surely they were not pegged for decades given that the Euro was introduced in 1998 and they transitioned fully in 2002?
blahedo · 1h ago
It was pegged originally to the Deutschmark. If you look up a currency table the historic DEM has the exact same conversion rate as the lev will have.
bapak · 3h ago
I don’t think those two are comparable economies to Bulgaria 20 years ago.
dotancohen · 2h ago
Thinking about it, the comparison really isn't that bad. West Germany had just reunited with the East, and France was definitely on a similar upward trajectory as Bulgaria is today.
bapak · 2h ago
When the EU was formed, its members' economies were comparable.
The lev was pegged to the euro in 1999, Bulgaria was roughly 80% poorer than the EU leaders
(I'm using PPP figures from ChatGPT to make these comparisons, I don't know if I'm making any sense)
petesergeant · 3h ago
> I've tried searching for any studies ... but from what I recall
I mean if you've tried to find evidence and can't, this feels a lot like you're simply misremembering?
arlort · 1h ago
It's something that is pretty much taken as gospel in many countries that that happened
I've only checked the data for Italy but real inflation stayed pretty much constant while perceived inflation absolutely blew out of proportion.
So essentially people noticed some minority of shops raising their prices talking advantage of the little confusion around the exchange rate and never shut up about it since
oaiey · 31m ago
Same in Germany. I remember the times, was a poor student. Restaurants took the opportunity to change prices, which everyone felt but did not influence the inflation. And that price hikes was overdue (at least that was the statements back then ... Which I found rationale)
ingohelpinger · 1h ago
the Euro has lost almost half of its purchasing power since its creation. bulgarians want the Euro so much, that they have to run tv ads, "we will become more wealthy by introducing the Euro", what? how will that happen, if you need more money to buy same or less products/services? lmao
ako · 49m ago
Same for USD and other major currencies, as most countries have inflation around 2%. Only currency that has done significantly better is the swiss frank.
ingohelpinger · 17m ago
if you think inflation rate is at 2% you must be living under a rock
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.
Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44412143
At least - that was my experience spending a couple months there 2-3 years ago.
It was specifically for Bulgaria, the only EU country to use the Cyrillic alphabet. Eurozone membership was a distant thought at that point, but they knew they'd be in eventually. Now's the time!
* Bulgarian support for the EU is pretty low and people didn't think it made their life much better
* Bulgarian support for Russia is very high, like 50%, probably due to their historic help in kicking out the Turks
Also, under under the Communist rule supported by USSR, they indoctrinated people into a version of history that Turks are the absolute evil, and Russians are the absolute angels saving them from the ottomans.
I.e. in pre-EU era it was called Ottoman slavery, later they start calling it Ottoman era as it was more accurate as Ottoman’s system was based on collecting taxes and resources from the conquered places when giving them plenty of autonomy. Obviously not ideal but far from slavery.
[1]https://jacobin.com/2025/07/yanis-varoufakis-on-the-legacy-o...
Portugal managed to get out of the storm, and debt is now below GDP.
Greece took many bad steps trying to recover. And its debt shows that. Their governments have had a big part of the blame. Hell, at one point they didnt have enough money for citizens to withdraw from banks.
And that was before Troika.
Sure but so do the creditors. If you keep giving mortgages to anyone with a drivers license that's on you buddy.
At almost no point is there enough money for citizens to withdraw their money. Modern banks don't keep their assets as cash.
That Greece accepted the terms reflected the reality that the alternative was much worse and would have caused great suffering for Greeks.
Varoufakis would argue the severe terms imposed by the creditors/negotiators exacerbated the fiscal issue. Yes Greece had issues but the creditors's terms exacerbated the problem, made things worse.
It's kind of like borrowing from a loan shark to pay off debts --on average, you're better off not. But hey, once you take it, you either pay up, or you lose something dear to you.
It seems (from here), support for Russia is somehow magically going down as Russia’s economy is having trouble paying for its “support” abroad.
Cyprus ranks 17th and Greece 32nd
I don't think that's true ... growth is good, but that's because there's a lot of catching up to do. If I remember correctly (and maybe I don't) then real GDP is still like -20% vs 2007, debt is EU-leading at like 150% of GDP, unemployment remains high, and wages remain low.
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.
Over the years I've seen a lot of missinformation on this topic that follows pretty much this exact train of thought. Why would countries join the EU and the Euro if it didn't benefit them?
The baltics have all grown massively since the 90s when they became independent, and even though they all were on nice trajectories they still all decided to join the EU and the Euro.
Bringing up the UK as some model for all other "small" european countrie sounds odd. The UK joined the EEC specifically because it had slower economic growth than the other large EU countries.
The UK, and specifically the city of london, with its huge international financial pull has a very different place in the global economy than Bulgaria...
But on the other hand, anything that reduces the domination of the US dollar is welcome.
When Germany converted to the Euro, the conversion rate was (IIRC) about ~2 DM to the Euro but from what I recall, a lot of everyday things went from costing 7 DM to 7 euro, effectively doubling in price. IIRC France was similar (ie ~6.5 francs to the Euro but 10 Francs went to 3 euro, etc).
I've tried searching for any studies on this to see if the effect was measured and, if so, whether it held with later countries joining the euro.
I'm a little surprised that the euro has been this stable for this long (going on 30 years). Finland debated leaving. IT's debated if there's even a legal mechanism to leave. We still have the problem that the ECB sets eurozone monetary policy with Germany and Greece being vastly different economies.
The currencies were pegged for a period before then so other than niche cases there really weren’t opportunities for massive price increases.
Dunno about Belgium but what I notice in French supermarkets is that prices aren’t rounded at all. 10k SKUs will have 10k different prices (ish).
Plain frozen pizza? 4,62 EUR.
Same with pepperoni? 4,92 EUR
Domestic 500mL beer? 1,14 EUR
Fancier beer? 1,81 EUR
The inflation did correct itself the years after (aka lower than usual). The perception with many people still is that the euro made everything more expensive, but that's only based on feelings. The inflation numbers tell a different story.
One small disruptor to a core component of a small economy and they are standing outside the IMF to survive.
There are currently 50-60 small countries that depend on borrowing from the IMF (that too in dollars paying interest in dollars - given competition levels guess what dollar generating capacities small economies have? They end up economic vassals of larger systems or selling off national assets or being used in geopolitical games).
On the other hand look at China and India. They have more provinces/states than the EU and larger populations. Vastly differently economies spanning all those subunits. Yet you wont find any of those subunits complaining about their central bank setting monetary policy.
Why? Cuz look at the surroundings - Sri Lanka/Pakistan/Myanmar/Bangladesh/Thailand/Indonesia/even South Korea all at one point or another requiring the IMF to step in and bail them out when they ran into trouble.
The world is too complex and fast/ever changing and small economies are increasingly dependent on larger economies to manage the unknowns and unpredictability that lie ahead. Its almost become impossible to survive by themselves. Sort of like running a book store in the era of Amazon.
This is ludicrously wrong of India, and I understand enough of human nature and economics that I’d be surprised if it were true of China, though it may be more suppressed.
Monetary policy is government policy. The ruling party is seldom uniformly popular across their entire domain. Perhaps you’re more familiar with US politics: broadly, rural is Republican, urban is Democrat. In India, the ruling party BJP has a lot of the north, but not so much of the south or east. Accordingly, you should expect dissent from regions with a different state government. And as for socioeconomic disparity between states, rich may complain if they seem to be subsidising poor, poor may complain if they don’t seem to be getting enough attention.
I mean and also the US, but the key difference here is that those are also cohesive countries where wealth transfers between different areas is the norm. Much less problematic if a policy is better for New York than Alabama if you know for sure that the federal government is going to make sure Alabama doesn't get screwed.
In the EU you have the opposite problem: policies that benefit rich countries will result in the rich countries complaining about how they support the other economies and moralizing.
The country already experienced quite a bit of inflation last years, regardless of not being in the euro. I don’t see why the change of the currency that is already pegged to euro since the creation of Euro will cause any inflation beyond the rounding and the rounding is for 1:1.95583 and that often provides rounding sown incentive as 4.99 becoming 2.04 and 4.49 becoming 2.2957
A more realistic concern can be that Bulgaria might start borrowing irresponsibly. Currently Bulgaria's debt to GDP is just around %22, which is very low.
The situation was literally identical in Germany, where the official rate was also precisely 1.95583 to the euro (because the lev used to be tied to the DM at 1:1), but not so in most other European countries.
The lev was pegged to the euro in 1999, Bulgaria was roughly 80% poorer than the EU leaders
(I'm using PPP figures from ChatGPT to make these comparisons, I don't know if I'm making any sense)
I mean if you've tried to find evidence and can't, this feels a lot like you're simply misremembering?
I've only checked the data for Italy but real inflation stayed pretty much constant while perceived inflation absolutely blew out of proportion.
So essentially people noticed some minority of shops raising their prices talking advantage of the little confusion around the exchange rate and never shut up about it since