There are years that do not simply change on the calendar, but rearrange the historical trajectory of a country. For Bulgaria, 2026 is such a year. Entering the eurozone is not a technical act, nor an accounting operation. It is a final civilizational choice - leaving the Eurasian periphery and entering the inner circle of Europe. But let's not kid ourselves, the battle for Europe in the minds of Bulgarians will continue.
This is what Iliyan Vassilev summarized on "Facebook".
In fact, membership in the eurozone is not just a matter of lower transaction costs or the convenience of a common currency. It is a political, value-based and geopolitical act. And that is precisely why the resistance to the eurozone is so fierce.
The myth of the “lack of public consensus“ is a convenient cover.
In Bulgaria there has never been a complete consensus on anything that has changed the course of history – neither for the April Uprising, nor for the Liberation, nor for membership in NATO and the EU.
History is not made with unanimity, but with direction and faith.
More indicative than the street noise was the behavior of the authorities –silence. The rulers did not lead a debate, did not defend the decision, did not stand behind it politically. Only in the last six months did they make an attempt to define themselves. This was not weakness. This was fear.
Fear of the interests associated with the huge volumes of money outside the banking system and the oligarchs who lose from the rules and laws in the European Union. Money from corruption, from smuggling, from energy schemes, from state-guaranteed thefts. The eurozone is not a problem for honest business - it is an existential threat to the criminal economy, because it sets a boundary between the “anonymous“ and the “legal“.
The big players may have cleaned up their tracks.
But the “under-the-mattress“ economy does not have this luxury. It does not have access to complex financial laundries and offshore structures. For it, the eurozone is the moment when the state can ask: where did this money come from? Well, how can it be, “for“? And this fear has been greatly exploited.
Added to this is another, deeper fear - the fear of the political establishment, tied to Russian energy projects. Joining the eurozone means closer integration, more supervision, less room for “special deals“ with Moscow. It was precisely in these agreements that the Borisov – Peevski model was born.
That is why the eurozone was accepted not as a political cause, but as a forced inevitability. A step forward, a step back, a step to the side. Waiting. Sounding.
The opponents of the euro will not remain silent. They will continue to scare with an apocalypse – with a collapse of the economy, with debts, with impoverishment. The more they lose arguments, the more hysterical they will become. The problem is that they are no longer convincing – the tragic scenarios they describe are increasingly saturated with comic elements.
Entering the eurozone does not automatically solve Bulgaria's problems. It does not replace the lack of justice, does not eliminate corruption, does not guarantee political maturity. It simply raises the bar. And places Bulgaria in an environment in which Eurasian tricks do not go easily.
From here From now on, the real question is not “whether the euro is good“, but whether Bulgaria is ready to be a country in the inner circle of Europe.
Not as a silent performer, but as an active participant – critical of bureaucratic perversions, of ideological extremes, of policies that stifle entrepreneurship and innovation.
Being pro-European does not mean saying “yes” to everything that bears the label “Europe”, especially to the extremes of liberal democracy. It means bearing responsibility for the common home. And 2026 is the moment when Bulgaria stops hiding and starts asking questions and answering them.