With Bulgaria set to adopt the Euro on January 1, 2026, many of its citizens — especially in poorer and rural regions — fear the change of currency could further strain already tight household budgets.
The Balkan country will become the Euro area’s 21st member next week, nearly 19 years after it joined the European Union. The move ends a lengthy monetary transition during which Bulgaria’s lev has been pegged to the Euro.
It comes a decade after Bulgaria met the bloc’s technical criteria for entry into the common currency.
Despite repeated assurances from officials and economists that the currency changeover will not lead to sharp price rises, public opinion remains deeply divided.
A recent survey shared by Bulgarian National Radio found 57 per cent of Bulgarians oppose adopting the euro in principle, while only 39 per cent support it.
Much of the concern centres on inflation and rising living costs — fears economists say are largely driven by perception rather than past experience.
Patrick Bisciari, an economist at the National Bank of Belgium and one of the authors of a report published yesterday on Bulgaria’s euro adoption, told Brussels Signal that previous changeovers suggest the actual impact on prices is limited.
“As with other countries joining the euro, one of the main fears among citizens is a rise in prices linked to the changeover,” Bisciari said. “In practice, the impact has most often been small and temporary.”
European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said in a speech in Sofia last month that inflation effects during changeovers to the Euro between 2002 and 2024 ranged between 0.2 and 0.4 percentage points.
In Croatia, the most recent country to adopt the euro, the impact was limited to around 0.4 points and faded quickly, she added.
Bisciari said people often feel inflation is higher because prices of frequently purchased goods — such as food — rise faster than others, creating a sense overall prices are surging.
“It is often a question of perception,” he said, adding that consumers may also attribute inflation to the Euro when prices would have risen anyway.
Economists also note Bulgaria’s economy has already been closely tied to the Euro for years.
More than 80 per cent of imports are denominated in euros, while roughly 45 per cent of exports go to the Euro area.
Still, scepticism remains strong on the ground, particularly in cash-dependent regions. In villages in north-western Bulgaria, shopkeepers say the introduction of dual pricing has already caused confusion and tension.
Grocery owners feared January would be “chaos” as customers struggle to understand prices displayed in both currencies, reported the AFP December 23.
Such concerns are echoed across small municipalities, where poverty rates are higher and financial literacy is often lower.
“These are the main concerns we encounter in small municipalities: the fear of becoming poorer, because people have very little in reserve,” said Boryana Dimitrova of the Alpha Research polling institute, which has studied attitudes to the Euro for the past year.
Political instability has compounded this economic unease.
The government that oversaw the final stages of Euro adoption collapsed earlier in December, following weeks of mass protests triggered by a controversial budget proposal.
What began as opposition to tax and spending measures evolved into broader demonstrations against corruption and governance.
Outgoing Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov said his resignation reflected public anger. “We hear the voice of the citizens protesting against the government,” he said, after weeks of rallies across multiple cities.
Political crisis has increasingly been linked online to the Euro changeover, even though the protests were driven by domestic budgetary and governance disputes rather than monetary policy, Reuters reported December 19.
Misleading claims circulating on social media have framed the Euro as the cause of political instability, blurring the origins of the protests and the role of the single currency, the news agency reported.
These narratives often merge unrelated grievances — from corruption allegations to energy prices — into a single storyline portraying Euro adoption as a loss of sovereignty or a trigger for economic decline.
Analysts cited by Reuters said this environment makes it harder for official reassurances to resonate, particularly in a country with long-standing distrust in political institutions.
At the macroeconomic level, Bulgaria meets the formal criteria for Euro adoption and has seen significant economic convergence over the past two decades.
Bulgaria’s GDP per capita rose from around 40 per cent of the EU average in 2007 to 66 per cent in 2024, according to EU data cited in the National Bank of Belgium’s report.
