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Bulgaria joins euro area from 1 January

75 points by yreg ago | 21 comments

lta |next [-]

Welcome friends ! It's been a pleasure visiting you as (distant) neighbors and it's even better to have you as partners. That's one great piece of news to start the year on a good note !

sas41 |next |previous [-]

I'm seeing some negative sentiment here, that I feel like, needs to be cleared up. For some context, I'm 29, I haven't always lived here, but have been here for almost 20 years. I work in the software industry.

1. Bulgaria has been a member state since January 1st 2007. Many here feel like us being accepted into Schengen area took longer it should despite the clear benefits of our black sea ports.

2. The adoption of the Euro was a long planned thing, delayed to ensure the country can have a smooth transition, while there's a Russo-phile movement in the country, there was never a majority negative sentiment, it's believed to be Russian disinformation that made it look like that.

3. Bulgaria is not purely a leech in the EU, while it's a beneficiary of financial aid from various EU initiatives, that's offset heavily by the constant source cheap, highly skilled labor and education. Some common examples are/were Nurses and Doctors often go west to fill gaps in other member state, notably in UK before Brexit. Construction laborers working in Germany. And an incredible amount of software engineering being outsourced to here from all over the world, especially richer members states.

4. Bulgaria has a huge Queer community, and while it's true, the current government leaned more conservative in the bad sense, we did also protest them out of government. While the country is dealing with and healing from decades of past Russian influence, the youth are organizing Queer Bazaars and Palestinian Solidarity Charity Punk concerts, both, I can attest were very nice.

My advice is to not form your opinions purely by what news sources that reach you, because in the modern world, everyone has an agenda. Before talking about a country you have no personal, long term experience with, try to do basic research using the "country + keywords" query and dig deep. The news that seem to reach people these days seem to constantly confirm their biases, and having seen the comparison to Hungary, a country under possible dictatorship, vs. Bulgaria, a country that just protested it's Parliament out, feels very odd.

loky4i4 |root |parent [-]

big downside to adoption of euro is that retailers fictitiously increase prices, same happend in Croatia

nephihaha |root |parent [-]

And Ireland.

fennecbutt |next |previous [-]

69%~ of Bulgarians disagree with gay marriage. Only 17%~ think gay marriage should be allowed in Europe in general.

In 2024 they passed your typical "gay propaganda" bill meaning that issues related to or affecting gay people cannot be discussed, even sexual health etc.

As a gay dude who never got being gay mentioned, or requisite sexual health advice when I was in school (in NZ) and took several hard years of not understanding what was wrong when I was trying to force myself to be hetero:

I don't think they deserve this. They don't deserve the financial boons and convenience of the Euro area. But then others will disagree of course; we're tribal - the gays are my tribe and might not be yours, but the difference between you and me I suppose is that I'd complain if they were known to have laws or persecute any particular group, not just my own tribes.

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fabianmg |root |parent |previous [-]

I totally agree with you, but is not just the progressive views on gay marriage on the EU that are at risk, is any progressive thinking. There's a wave of right wing backward thinking around the EU, and we keep adding more countries like Hungary.

fennecbutt |root |parent [-]

I was going to go into lots of detail but yes I agree, Hungary is also a disappointment in their social values and cozying up to Putin.

It's such a shame since I know so many awesome Hungarians, queer and not queer who are thoughtful people.

ErroneousBosh |next |previous [-]

Congratulations Bulgaria! Maybe this time next year, the UK!

lta |root |parent [-]

Sadly unlikely to happen in the next future

ErroneousBosh |root |parent [-]

Well maybe just Scotland then. Out of the UK, into the EU, using the Euro, in Schengen, and the neighbours to the south can continue flying their little flags and painting their roundabouts if they like.

nephihaha |root |parent [-]

I would like to see Scotland in the EU, if the EU can turn itself away from authoritarianism and censorship.

fabianmg |next |previous [-]

This doesn't make sense. We're admitting another Hungary in our club, and this is not going to end well. Any progressive vote is going to be blocked by those countries, and we're going to be paying money to them to vote our way as we are doing now with Hungary.

evan_a_a |root |parent [-]

Bulgaria has been an EU member state since 2007. This is only about adoption of the euro.

byyll |next |previous [-]

Did they agree? I've read at least one news article in the past 2 years talking about a referendum.

oliwarner |root |parent [-]

When they joined 20 years ago.

byyll |root |parent [-]

They had a referendum for that?

fithisux |previous [-]

[flagged]

jaapz |root |parent |next [-]

Yeah I hate being able to use the same currency in many countries near mine

graemep |root |parent [-]

There is a hefty cost of that convenience: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_area_crisis and the convenience is really just a small savings as card payments work everywhere.

The solution is to have an EU wide budget so money can be swiftly moved between economies: the EU needs to be more like the US which has a large federal budget.

netsharc |root |parent [-]

Top economists have criticized the EU because of this (a currency union without a federal budget), but since this is HN, of course we have many many more experts, who can accurately (in their heads) dismiss the whole branch as stupid.

In the US there's agreements so poor states get federal money, but in the EU if a country needs to be bailed out, 28 or so national parliaments have to discuss it and come to 1 agreement.

Meanwhile the benefit of your own currency is that it helps the economy from getting too hot (too high Deutschmarks = BMWs get more expensive in non-DM countries (Dieter and Hans have to earn the same DMs to build them), German economy slows down... And when the economic conditions get tough, investments into your country (say Greece) slow down, meaning foreign investors need less Drachmas, price of Drachma falls, and the price of the Greek [what do they export] falls - Ioannis earns the same amount of Drachmas, but he needs to work longer to buy e.g. an imported iPhone, meaning his wage has actually been decreased... with the labour force barely noticing or making a big fuss.

The Euro was more like pegging the whole of Europe to the Deutschmark, which gave the German economy the boom (no more overheating!), but to the pain of many other nations...

https://www.npr.org/2011/01/25/133112932/paul-krugman-the-ec... (Trigger warning, this name triggers that part of many genius brains that will dismiss his arguments because they're certain he's an idiot based on one or two quotes)

graemep |root |parent [-]

Thanks for adding the details.

I think Krugman is somewhat unfair to the architects of the Euro. As far as I can tell they expected political integration to follow so that federal budget would have followed and the problem solved.

> but in the EU if a country needs to be bailed out, 28 or so national parliaments have to discuss it and come to 1 agreement.

It also leads to worse agreements. The Euro crisis had to be solved in a way that was politically acceptable, and that punished the populations of the countries (at least in the case of Greece) that needed a bailout with unnecessary austerity policies.