Bulgaria is close to joining the euro currency but faces disinformation and fear

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Bulgaria is close to realizing its decades-old goal of joining the euro currency union and deepening ties with the more prosperous countries of Western Europe. But the government faces a populist backlash against the shared currency on the eve of a key decision by European Union authorities.

Fears of inflation, poverty and the unknown are mingling with disinformation spread on social media that aims to turn people against the euro. The discontent tracks with increased support for populist and anti-EU parties across Europe, which is exploited by nationalist and pro-Russian politicians in a country that remains one of Europe's poorest and most afflicted with corruption.

“Adopting the euro will make us feel the threshold of poverty. After all, prices will be in euros,” said 78-year-old retiree Tanya Ignatova.

“Bulgaria is not ready for the euro. Someday we may be ready, but not now," said another retiree, Mario Georgiev.

Several thousand people rallied against the euro in the capital on Saturday, urging a referendum on whether to transition from the lev currency to the euro. The head of the pro-Russian Varazhdane party, Kostadin Kostadinov, told the crowd that “Bulgaria has risen and declared: Freedom, we choose the Bulgarian lev!”

Others in Bulgaria say the country already benefits from EU membership and it does not matter what the currency is. "We have inflation now and we will have it in the future,” said 26-year-old Konstantin Bozhinov.

Aiming at deepening European integration amid growing geopolitical tensions, the government is pressing ahead. It has asked for a review of whether it meets the requirements of low inflation, sound government finances and legal conformity to EU institutions. On Wednesday, the European Commission will announce the results.

If the commission gives a green light, other member states will decide on Bulgaria's candidacy in the coming weeks.

At the last review in 2022, Bulgaria failed on the inflation requirement. Inflation has since fallen.

President Rumen Radev has encouraged the anti-euro voices by proposing a referendum on the currency, citing public concerns over inflation and purchasing power. That followed a protest in February that saw the offices of the EU's executive commission in Sofia spattered with red paint and its entrance set on fire.

The president's proposal was turned down by the pro-European majority in parliament, which accused Radev of acting in favor of Russia with his last-minute attempt to sabotage the euro adoption.

According to the EU’s multi-country Eurobarometer survey released last week, 50% of Bulgarians are against the adoption of the euro, while 43% are in favor. In contrast, trust in the euro continues to grow across the rest of the EU.

Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007. It has been plagued by political instability and corruption that have fueled euroscepticism among its 6.4 million citizens. Analysts say disinformation campaigns from abroad have fed fears of economic changes that could bring more poverty.

Scores of false claims by opponents of the eurozone have been published on social networks. One claim says the EU plans to take away people’s savings if they fail to spend them within a certain period. Another claims that plans to introduce a digital version of the euro are part of a plan to control everyone.

“There is a powerful brainwashing of the average Bulgarian. Illusory fears are being spread, lies are being told wholesale, unscrupulously and brazenly," said Ognyan Minchev, director of the Institute for Regional and International Studies in Sofia.

Economists say joining the euro will not bring massive change to Bulgaria's economy in the short run. That's because the government has pegged the currency to the euro by law, at a fixed rate of 1 lev for every 51 euro cents.

Joining the euro can bring lower borrowing costs, greater ease in comparing domestic and foreign prices and no need to exchange money when vacationing in another euro country. More than that, it’s a sign of integration into the EU and its large economy. Members get a seat on the European Central Bank’s interest rate-setting committee.

Countries agree to join the euro when they join the EU, but so far 20 of 27 members have taken the step. Croatia was the last to join in 2023.

Bulgaria's government has very little debt, at 24.1% of GDP — the second lowest in the EU and well below the 60% level in euro membership criteria. That's a sharp contrast to its neighbor, Greece, which entered the euro in 1999 with high debt that was concealed through complex financial transactions. Greece's broken finances eventually triggered a eurozone-wide crisis.

Bulgaria's government has been “fiscally super conservative ... the risk of Bulgaria becoming a fiscal risk to the eurozone is essentially zero,” said Zsolt Darvas, senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels.

Fears of inflation are not entirely without basis. Experience in other countries shows that “whenever there is a changeover from national currency to the euro, there is often a minor inflation effect, but it's typically less than 1%,” said Darvas

Economists say a one-time increase occurs as service providers such as restaurants, which don't adjust prices as often as other sectors, take advantage of re-doing menus and price lists to implement hikes.

A protester shouts anti-euro slogans in front of signs reading 'Preserve Bulgarian Lev!' during an anti-Euro protest in Sofia, Bulgaria, Saturday 31, May 2025. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)

Red paint from pro-Russian protests remain visible on the European Parliament and European Commission building in Sofia, Bulgaria, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)

Street traffic is mirrored next to a damged sign of the EU Parliament and Commission in Sofia, Bulgaria, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)

A man passes by a Bulgarian National Bank logo in Sofia, Bulgaria, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo Valentina Petrova)

A man passes by graffiti sign reading 'No to Euro' in Sofia, Bulgaria, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after the audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela, President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”

The comments from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the ouster of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro underscore that the U.S. administration is serious about taking a more expansive role in the Western Hemisphere.

With thinly veiled threats, Trump is rattling hemispheric friends and foes alike, spurring a pointed question around the globe: Who's next?

“It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place," Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. "We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”

Asked during an interview with The Atlantic earlier on Sunday what the U.S.-military action in Venezuela could portend for Greenland, Trump replied: “They are going to have to view it themselves. I really don’t know.”

Trump, in his administration's National Security Strategy published last month, laid out restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” as a central guidepost for his second go-around in the White House.

Trump has also pointed to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which rejects European colonialism, as well as the Roosevelt Corollary — a justification invoked by the U.S. in supporting Panama’s secession from Colombia, which helped secure the Panama Canal Zone for the U.S. — as he's made his case for an assertive approach to American neighbors and beyond.

Trump has even quipped that some now refer to the fifth U.S. president's foundational document as the “Don-roe Doctrine.”

Saturday's dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas and Trump’s comments on Sunday heightened concerns in Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the vast mineral-rich island of Greenland.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a statement that Trump has "no right to annex" the territory. She also reminded Trump that Denmark already provides the United States, a fellow member of NATO, broad access to Greenland through existing security agreements.

“I would therefore strongly urge the U.S. to stop threatening a historically close ally and another country and people who have made it very clear that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said.

Denmark on Sunday also signed onto a European Union statement underscoring that “the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their future must be respected” as Trump has vowed to “run” Venezuela and pressed the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, to get in line.

Trump on Sunday mocked Denmark’s efforts at boosting Greenland’s national security posture, saying the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.

Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: “SOON."

“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Amb. Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark's chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump's influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

During his presidential transition and in the early months of his return to the White House, Trump repeatedly called for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has pointedly not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island that belongs to an ally.

The issue had largely drifted out of the headlines in recent months. Then Trump put the spotlight back on Greenland less than two weeks ago when he said he would appoint Republican Gov. Jeff Landry as his special envoy to Greenland.

The Louisiana governor said in his volunteer position he would help Trump “make Greenland a part of the U.S.”

Meanwhile, concern simmered in Cuba, one of Venezuela’s most important allies and trading partners, as Rubio issued a new stern warning to the Cuban government. U.S.-Cuba relations have been hostile since the 1959 Cuban revolution.

Rubio, in an appearance on NBC's “Meet the Press,” said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela ahead of his capture.

“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards.” The secretary of state added that Cuban bodyguards were also in charge of “internal intelligence” in Maduro’s government, including “who spies on who inside, to make sure there are no traitors.”

Trump said that “a lot” of Cuban guards tasked with protecting Maduro were killed in the operation. The Cuban government said in a statement read on state television on Sunday evening that 32 officers were killed in the U.S. military operation.

Trump also said that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, is in tatters and will slide further now with the ouster of Maduro, who provided the Caribbean island subsidized oil.

“It's going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It's going down for the count.”

Cuban authorities called a rally in support of Venezuela’s government and railed against the U.S. military operation, writing in a statement: “All the nations of the region must remain alert, because the threat hangs over all of us.”

Rubio, a former Florida senator and son of Cuban immigrants, has long maintained Cuba is a dictatorship repressing its people.

“This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live — and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States," Rubio said.

Cubans like 55-year-old biochemical laboratory worker Bárbara Rodríguez were following developments in Venezuela. She said she worried about what she described as an “aggression against a sovereign state.”

“It can happen in any country, it can happen right here. We have always been in the crosshairs,” Rodríguez said.

AP writers Andrea Rodriguez in Havana, Cuba, and Darlene Superville traveling aboard Air Force One contributed reporting.

In this photo released by the White House, President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Molly Riley/The White House via AP)