{"id":667831,"date":"2026-01-01T23:49:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T23:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/667831\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T23:49:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T23:49:24","slug":"bulgaria-adopts-the-euro-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/667831\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulgaria adopts the euro \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Bulgarian central bank&#8217;s governor, Dimitar Radev, has taken a seat on the table with the Governing Council of the European Central Bank. \u201cI warmly welcome Bulgaria to the euro family and Governor Radev to the ECB Governing Council table in Frankfurt,\u201d ECB President Christine Lagarde said\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ecb.europa.eu\/press\/pr\/date\/2026\/html\/ecb.pr260101~c830245e42.en.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CI%20warmly%20welcome%20Bulgaria%20to,European%20Central%20Bank%20(ECB).\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">in a statement<\/a>\u00a0on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>People will still be able to pay in levs for about a month, but they will start getting their change in euros.\u00a0Until June 30, old money can be exchanged for no fee at banks and post offices, and indefinitely at the Bulgarian Central Bank.<\/p>\n<p>Public opinion, however, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/bulgaria-eurozone-citizen-opinions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">remains mixed<\/a>. According to a <a href=\"https:\/\/europa.eu\/eurobarometer\/api\/deliverable\/download\/file?deliverableId=98864\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Eurobarometer poll<\/a> from March, 53 percent of 1,017 Bulgarians surveyed opposed joining the eurozone, while 45 percent were in favor.\u00a0A majority also felt Bulgaria was not ready to introduce the euro. The main fear was concern over &#8220;abusive price setting during the changeover.&#8221;<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Bulgaria joined the European Union on January 1, 2007. In\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sofiaglobe.com\/2025\/09\/03\/eurobarometer-58-of-bulgarians-believe-country-has-benefited-from-eu-membership\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">an official EU survey from May,<\/a>\u00a058 percent of Bulgarians said the country has benefited from its EU membership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bulgarian central bank&#8217;s governor, Dimitar Radev, has taken a seat on the table with the Governing Council&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[13489,2000,299,5187,20327,41942],"class_list":{"0":"post-667831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-bulgaria","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-eurozone","13":"tag-rumen-radev"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115822524059447820","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}