4 ms·
Bulgaria to Adopt the Euro
- aorth 1y agoI happened to be in downtown Sofia last night by chance and saw the massive protest. https://apnews.com/article/bulgaria-euro-protest-nationalists-eb9a054f062b21bad04a802caf467407 https://apnews.com/article/bulgaria-euro-protest-nationalist...
- windowshopping 1y agoI don't know if it's their intention but as soon as the article mentions that the protest leader is pro-Russian, I immediately assume anything he stands for is wrong and therefore euro adoption must be good. Of course someone pro-Russian is trying to push countries away from integrating with the West, and I have to assume any arguments he's making are probably disingenuous and misleading.
- akmarinov 1y agoAnd you’re right in this case!
- petre 1y agoThere were even Russians at some of the anti Euro protests. Probably proped up by the Kremlin through Tiktok and Telegram. Bulgaria has a pegged currency to the Euro since forever, they got quite depopulated after 1991 and their only chance is to become a tourist destination and to attract some investments from Türkye and maybe Greece, because nobody else would invest. The fact that Romania isn't interested in builing more bridges over the Danube and that Serbia isn't part of the EU also puts the northern part of Bulgaria in a tight spot. If you want to see what a depopulated country looks like, travel through northern Bulgaria. It looks like the descriptions from the book The World Without Us.
- LfLxfxxLxfxx 1y agoIf opposition to the Euro is so massive, can't they simply hold a referendum over it?
- akmarinov 1y agoIt’s not, it’s a couple hundred people and it’s mostly old folks that are 60+, as they’re easy to be riled up due to them longing for russian occupation. Also a referendum on the topic was ruled illegal, because it’ll violate the EU accession, where EU adoption is mandatory when criteria are met. Also it’s too late now, it all depends on two votes on the 8th of July by the ministers of finance and the EU parliament. Bulgaria has no way of pulling out now, without doing massive damage to their EU integration, credit score and investors’ interest.
- t0bia_s 1y agoIt is legal to do referendum about entering EU, but illegal to do referendum about leaving EU? It sounds quite totalitarian.
- akmarinov 1y agoIt’s legal to do a referendum about leaving the EU, but no one wants that and it’d be a political suicide to suggest it. Alt right politicians mostly want a referendum against the euro specifically, so that they can get points when the main parties can’t deliver it, they don’t want to exit the EU.
- t0bia_s 1y agoSo called "alt right" and similar labelling is common for those who are scared of these ideas and not willing to listen true reasons. We have demonstrations about every month for calls to reform EU structures or leave EU in current bureaucratic form.
- saturn_vk 1y agoThe Bulgarian currency has been pegged to the Deutsche Mark for more than twenty years now. This means that we’ve pretty much been using the euro since its inception, and any opposition is just a populist manoeuvring
- 4gotunameagain 1y agoIt is clearly not in the benefit of Bulgaria to join a shared currency with advanced, manufacturing, positive export surplus countries like Germany. Losing control of the currency will result in all domestic manufacturing to become more expensive (therefore incapable to compete with higher quality German goods), and all manufacturing capabilities will disappear in favour of the most cancerous form of industry, tourism. Like what happened to Greece and Portugal.
- Mainan_Tagonist 1y agoExactly, thank you for pointing this out. The Euro has hardly been the boon promised in many of the countries that have adopted it.
- mhitza 1y agoI'm not so familiar with Greece's and Portugal's issues when switching to the euro, but I have followed along the news with Croatia's switch to the euro. Where it was a prime excuse for the large chains (mainly supermarket chains) to round up prices during the conversion.
- Symbiote 1y agoIs there any trustworthy reporting on this? All it takes is for one chain to round prices down (1-2¢ isn't going to be an issue for them), advertise this, and gain many new customers.
- 4gotunameagain 1y agoThat is of course assuming that widespread corruption does not allow cartels. The markets are only efficient on paper ;)
- mslansn 1y agoIt also happened to Spain.
- mns 1y ago
- Strugger 1y ago[dead]
- DataDaemon 1y ago[flagged]
- akmarinov 1y agoYes, but this is a step in the richer direction
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- tsss 1y agoGreat, another chronically bankrupt country that Germany has to stand bail for.
- slaw 1y agoCroatia had kuna pegged to Euro, replaced it with euro in 2023 and prices of almost everything went up. Why Bulgaria's government is working against it's people?
- akmarinov 1y agoPrices also went up in Bulgaria without us adopting the euro…
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- eutraveler 1y ago