Bulgaria in the eurozone: How Romanians view it and how we can reset our relationship

Vladimir Mitev, The Liberal Community, 17 March 2026

Summary

Introduction: A Success That Surprised Everyone

Vladimir Mitev begins his article at The Liberal Community by noting that Bulgaria’s accession to the eurozone on January 1, 2026, was an event that surprised even the Bulgarians themselves. Despite initial expectations of chaos during the currency switch, the process went smoothly, without significant disruptions. The case, however, highlighted a specific psychological phenomenon in the region—the mindset of schadenfreude (malice). Romanian media initially sought confirmation of problems, while part of the Bulgarian population approached the change with skepticism due to fears of a loss of sovereignty and inflation.

Economic Competition and the Elites

An interesting focus has been placed on the reaction of the Romanian elites. While ordinary Romanians often supported Bulgaria’s path to the euro, a sense of jealousy emerged among the upper echelons.

• The income paradox: At a time of severe austerity in Romania, Bulgaria has demonstrated stable finances and competitive wages (an average gross salary of €1,369 for the country and €1,900 for Sofia).
• Objective factors: Although the Romanian economy is more technologically advanced and has a more developed stock market, Bulgaria won the race to the eurozone thanks to a public debt ten times smaller and a lower budget deficit.
• Political context: The author draws a parallel with 2019, when Bulgaria was held up as a model in the justice sector (despite the lack of actual high-level convictions), while the anti-corruption fight in Romania was at a standstill. In both cases, GERB’s strong lobby within the EPP played a role in the country’s positive image in Brussels.

Pragmatism vs. Conservatism

The article explains that Romania is in no hurry to join the eurozone not only because of economic incapacity but also due to a lack of political will for stricter financial control. The Romanian model, which relies on consumption, is similar to Poland’s, while Bulgaria, long constrained by the currency board, has followed a more conservative path, similar to that of the Baltic states. The Governor of the National Bank of Romania, Mugur Isărescu, predicts Romania’s accession no sooner than five years from now.

The Psychological Barrier and Prejudices

Vladimir Mitev pays close attention to the psychology of bilateral relations. Bulgaria and Romania have been moving “in tandem” for decades, yet remain strangers to one another.

• Romanian prejudice: Our neighbors still harbor the perception of Bulgarians as “Russian agents” or unreliable partners, which fuels the fear that closer ties with Bulgaria could hinder Romania’s aspirations toward the West.
• Bulgaria’s Lack of Ambition: The author criticizes the Bulgarian elites for their lack of communication and ambition regarding Romania, noting that Bulgaria has been reorienting itself toward the West since the 1980s., but this remains an unknown fact to the Romanian public, because of lack of communication. 

The Future: Citizens as Agents of Change

The article concludes with a call for a transformation of relations:

1. Integration of the “Shadow”: Drawing on Jung, the author suggests that the two nations stop projecting their negative qualities onto one another and acknowledge their shared challenges.
2. From the Periphery to the Center: In the context of the EU’s division into a “core” and an “inner periphery,” cooperation between Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece could create a new economic center in Southeast Europe.
3. Citizen Initiative: Examples such as the creation of a Romanian-speaking club in Ruse show that change will come from ordinary people who build trust through joint projects, rather than from politicians.

Conclusion: Joining the eurozone is a clear sign that Bulgaria’s transition is not endless. Bulgaria’s success with the new currency will be a test not only for its economy but also for the region’s ability to modernize and synchronize. Vladimir Mitev urges Romanians to develop a curiosity about the new reality in Bulgaria, and Bulgarians to show greater ambition in their relations with their 19 million neighbors to the north.

Article

A few days after Bulgaria joined the eurozone on January 1, 2026, I was contacted by an editor from a Romanian television station who asked me to give an interview about the “chaos” surrounding the transition from the lev to the euro. But I didn’t have the impression that there was any chaos. The currency changeover process was, perhaps, temporarily linked to some irregularities on the part of commercial banks or merchants, but everything was proceeding smoothly, and the difficulties didn’t seem to be that significant. So I declined the offer.

But this incident was further confirmation of something I sensed both in the media and among certain elites on both sides at the beginning of the year—an attitude of schadenfreude —that “joy” when things aren’t going well and the search for confirmation that there’s a fly in the ointment, the ointment being Bulgaria’s accession to the eurozone.

Reports by Romanian television stations in Ruse and Sofia accurately captured the fact that a significant portion of the Bulgarian population views the replacement of the lev with the euro with distrust and skepticism. These compatriots of mine often do not own their own businesses and do not see how the euro will directly benefit them. They noted that in 2025 and in previous years there had been higher inflation, and they feared that joining the eurozone would mean a loss of sovereignty, of national dignity, and a consolidation of power among those segments of society they view with antipathy.

More interesting, however, was the reaction of the Romanian elites and citizens. Throughout 2025, I sensed that support for Bulgaria’s accession to the eurozone was greater among the Romanians I interacted with than among my Bulgarian counterparts. At the same time, I also sensed a degree of jealousy from a segment of the Romanian elite.

Competition between the Bulgarian and Romanian elites

At a time when Romania is in a new era of austerity, Bulgaria suddenly found itself with excellent finances. Unexpectedly, even Bulgarians’ incomes—with an average gross salary of 1,369 euros for the entire country and approximately 1,900 euros for Sofia—seemed good. Not only Romanians, but Bulgarians themselves were asking: how is it that, after years of Romania being a model of economic development, Bulgarians have suddenly overtaken it on the path to the eurozone?

A similar sense of injustice arose in 2019 when, following the halting of the anti-corruption fight in Romania—which had sent a significant number of ministers to prison—Bulgaria was suddenly held up as a model of justice in the European Commission’s reports under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM), and this without any major political or mafia figures having been definitively convicted. Both then and now, GERB—Boiko Borisov’s party, with a powerful lobby within the European People’s Party and the European Commission—was in power, and it was precisely this lobby that served as the convenient explanation for why the Bulgarians had “cunningly” outmaneuvered the Romanians, after news coming out of Bulgaria had long been almost exclusively negative.

Except that, this time, there were objective indicators that the Romanian media itself pointed out: Bulgaria’s public debt is approximately 10 times smaller than Romania’s in numerical terms (while Bulgaria’s GDP is about three times smaller), and Romania’s budget deficit precludes any intention of joining the eurozone in the next 5–7 years.

The comparison with “the Bulgarians,” however, was superficial—the Romanian economy has greater technological complexity in its exports and a more developed industrial sector. Furthermore, the Bucharest Stock Exchange is far more developed than the Bulgarian Stock Exchange in Sofia.

Romania and the Eurozone

Comparisons between Bulgaria and Romania did not accurately reflect who is where, and not just because of macroeconomic differences. As my interviews with Romanian economists have shown, Romania is not in the eurozone—perhaps not because it cannot, but because its political and business elites, pragmatically speaking, are in no hurry to join and accept stricter control over their own finances. Consequently, the absence of a coalition of political and economic actors in favor of joining the eurozone leads to a lack of policies that prioritize a low budget deficit, low inflation, and other conditions necessary for membership in the euro club.

Unlike Romania, Bulgaria has long maintained conservative fiscal policies and a prudent wage policy, operating under a currency board regime, with the Bulgarian lev pegged to the euro at a fixed exchange rate. But while the Bulgarian economy is small and export-oriented—similar to those of Slovenia, Slovakia, or the Baltic states, all members of the eurozone—the Romanian economy was driven, in the years before the revenue cuts, by rising consumption, which brought it closer to that of Poland—another country in no hurry to adopt the euro.

After Bulgaria adopted the euro, we heard from the highest level—from the governor of the National Bank of Romania, Mugur Isărescu—that Romania could consider joining the eurozone no sooner than five years from now, provided the budget deficit remains under control.

If the euro has a positive impact on the Bulgarian economy and people’s incomes, this could also play a beneficial role in the introduction of the single currency in Romania. If Bulgaria faces macroeconomic problems, this would likely slow down Romania’s path toward the eurozone. Thus, supporters of the euro in Romania have every interest in the euro having a positive impact on the Bulgarian economy.

Similarly, Bulgarians—especially those in the north of the country—have a clear interest in the Romanian economy overcoming its fiscal problems and emerging from the technical recession, as wealthier Romanian citizens will be able to spend more on goods and services offered by Bulgarians or companies based in Bulgaria.

It’s a win-win situation: either we win together and develop in sync, or we’ll gloat over our neighbors’ failures, but we’ll also pay the price for their slower development or for them falling behind.

The great Romanian prejudice against Bulgarians

And right here, after everything I’ve written above in the form of economic theses, comes my own commentary on the psychology of Romanian-Bulgarian relations. Our two nations have been “bundled together” for decades, yet at the local level they do not know one another, hold negative stereotypes about each other, and give the impression that, if possible, they would gladly break free from the bundle they are in.

Isn’t Bulgaria’s accession to the eurozone a moment when the Romanian elite should make an effort to get to know Bulgaria better, to develop a contemporary understanding of it that would allow for interaction and mutual enrichment between Bulgarians and Romanians?

And shouldn’t the blind competition between the two countries gradually give way to cooperation between them?

From my interactions with Romanians of different generations, I’ve been left with the impression that in their minds there’s still a vivid image from the Brezhnev era or the 1990s, according to which we Bulgarians are entirely Russian agents or, at best, if we aren’t Russian, we’re Bulgarian agents. But in any case, we aren’t to be trusted. We don’t have much to offer. And getting close to us could be harmful, could discredit, could weaken Romania’s ancestral aspiration toward the West, and could trap Romania and Romanians on the periphery from which they wish to break free.

Bulgaria and Western Europe

How, exactly, do these fears coexist with the facts of reality—that Bulgaria uses the euro, that it is a member of NATO, the EU, and the Schengen Area, and is set to join the OECD?

In my opinion, membership in these Western integration structures is linked to corresponding reforms and social transformations. And the societies within them have internal balances that differ from those outside them.

Bulgaria has been on a course of rapprochement with Western Europe not just now, but since the 1980s (when, during Zhivkov’s time, its economic reorientation toward West Germany and Japan began, in the context of the differences between Zhivkov and Gorbachev). And if this has remained misunderstood and unrecognized by Romanians over the past 36 years, this is likely due to a lack of communication and ambition on the part of the Bulgarian elites regarding Romania.

The psychology of Bulgarian-Romanian relations

But a possible cause is also the Balkan rivalry between the two nations, which structurally sustains mutual indifference and contempt. Perhaps it was advantageous for parts of the Romanian elite to appear as unequivocal supporters of the West, against the backdrop of Bulgarian attempts to play a bridging role between the various types of “West” and “East.”

How, then, do we explain the Georgescu phenomenon? Or the maneuvers of Nicușor Dan, who went to Washington solely to attend Trump’s Peace Council on February 19, 2026, but failed to honor the anniversary of the start of the war in Ukraine in Kyiv five days later?

I believe that both Bulgarians and Romanians are already mature enough, Europeanized enough, and pragmatic enough to stop projecting onto one another the negative qualities and realities that we carry deep within ourselves. Bulgaria’s accession to the eurozone should not create a sense of being left behind for Romanians who, even in the midst of a crisis, continue to have a more dynamic and complex economy.

The introduction of the euro south of the Danube shows, perhaps, that we Bulgarians are more complex and different than the popular image of us.

And if we Bulgarians surprise people in a positive way, perhaps we deserve greater attention and effort. Thus, the static identity in Romanian-Bulgarian relations—our image of the neighbors across the Danube, which until now has caused us to avoid and distrust one another—might, perhaps, finally, after decades of immutability, begin to undergo a transformation, thanks to the real and direct relations between us.

The reception marking Bulgaria’s National Day on March 3, in the “Unirii” Hall of the Romanian Parliament, with between 800 and 1,000 guests this year, is perhaps one of the signs that Bulgaria is finally beginning to have an ambition directed toward Romania’s 19 million inhabitants, rather than limited to the 6,000 ethnic Bulgarians in Romania.

But my article is not so much a call to question the legitimacy of the Bulgarian state—which continues to face serious problems related to the oligarchic networks that reproduce themselves in all the new and old political “prophets”—as it is an appeal to Romanians to develop a genuine curiosity and ambition regarding Bulgarians as people.

The citizens of both countries are the agents of change in relations

Change in bilateral and regional relations will depend increasingly not on politicians, diplomats, and businesspeople, whose success rate is evident in the inertia and lack of commitment that have prevailed thus far in Romanian-Bulgarian relations.

In an increasingly financialized world, a world where brute and hegemonic force is ineffective in bilateral relations within the EU, their evolution will depend more and more on the ability of citizens—ordinary people—to carry out their own projects in the Romanian-Bulgarian space and in the region. For this to happen, they must build trust. And this is linked to a desire for understanding, sympathy, and curiosity toward one another.

Southeast Europe’s Place in the Future EU

The emerging divide between the core EU countries (the leading economies of Western Europe plus Poland) and the second-tier countries, including Bulgaria and Romania, could lead Bulgarians and Romanians to find in each other the experience and economic dynamism they lack when attracting investment and seeking trade or expertise in relations with the core.

The idea is not to marginalize ourselves by turning inward toward our own region. On the contrary, for Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece, the infrastructure connectivity they are working on will replicate the logic of the core among themselves. They will serve as a pillar and an outpost in the process of integration and Europeanization of the Western Balkans and the Black Sea region.

But to serve as this bridge between the EU and the region, their elites and peoples must finally realize that what repels us in others is something we carry within ourselves. And the psychological path forward, at least according to Jung, lies in illuminating and integrating our “shadow.”

These days, in Ruse—the Bulgarian city that is perhaps the most open to Romanian cultural and political influence—a group of Romanian-speaking Bulgarians, some with degrees from Romanian universities, are discussing the establishment of a club for Romanian speakers in the city, where we can share experiences and express our curiosity about Romania.

If this idea comes to fruition, it would foster closer ties between the residents of Ruse and Romanian speakers everywhere. And it would show that we are already living in the future where we are part of the Schengen Area, where economic relations between us are increasingly denominated in euros, and where we—who have traditionally been on the periphery of the West—are now embodying the logic of the center among ourselves.

When the baggage of our past begins to undergo a transformation, we will realize the enormous potential of seemingly unattractive relationships—those between Romanians and Bulgarians. Relationships in which our communication and mutual enrichment bring us closer to the core of the EU, because they allow us to synchronize and overcome our fragmentation.

Conclusion

It seems to me that Bulgarians do not realize what has happened to them with their accession to the eurozone. They simply say: “Now I see the real value of my salary.” And they do not experience any kind of elation or excess from the fact that they shop and are paid in euros.

Joining the eurozone is, however, a clear sign that Bulgaria is not standing still and that its transition is not endless. From now on, the financial managers of the Bulgarian economy assert that it is up to us to manage our economy in such a way that we feel the benefits of joining the eurozone, says Dimitar Radev, governor of the Bulgarian National Bank.

Will Bulgaria succeed with its new currency? Time will tell.

But it is clear that, whatever happens, Bulgaria and Romania are two countries where people should follow what is happening in their neighbors’ countries with interest and seriousness. Here is what is happening: the balances in our region and in our countries are shifting. Euro-Atlantic elements are advancing in terms of finance, infrastructure connectivity, defense, and security. But our understanding of ourselves and our neighbors is not keeping pace with the speed of these changes.

That is why I hope this article contributes to a new perspective on Bulgaria and the Bulgarians. Not because many of the old ways of thinking and realities no longer exist. But because it is time to identify what is new about Bulgarians. Romanians who are able to recognize this now have already won the battle for the region’s modernization.

Photo: The Bulgarian flag and the euro (source: The Liberal Community)

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