Bulgaria to join the Eurozone: "For tourism, it means a strong boost"

CGTN Europe interviewed Daniel Gros, Director, Institute for European Policymaking, Bocconi University

Transcript

00:00stay with the story daniel gross is director of the institute for european policy making

00:06at buconi university in milan bulgaria is a very small economy heavily dependent on trade

00:15and also on tourism and having the euro would mean that the costs for the bulgarian industry

00:23exporters imports will go down a lot and also for tourism it means a strong boost if tourists know

00:32that they can come and pay with the same money as they used to be paying at home we have seen

00:38that already in other countries like croatia before and what about the cost of borrowing

00:46the cost of pouring for many people will go down

00:50a little bit but i don't think a lot because interest rates were already very low in bulgaria

00:56the exchange rate had been fixed to the euro for 25 years without ever changing

01:04and therefore banks will basically charge more or less the same interest rates as before

01:11lots of advantages for bulgaria and yet on saturday there were protests from many people who feel it's

01:18going to be really bad for them do you think they're looking at what greece went through

01:23with its debt crisis years of austerity very strict fiscal rules under the eurozone could that be

01:31worrying them no not at all because greece was a country with a high debt high public sector debt the

01:41highest in the eurozone greece had lied about his uh his public sector finances bulgaria is exact opposite

01:50bulgaria has one of the lowest public sector debt it has always been very clean

01:56on its deficits and debts and that for a good reason because bulgaria experienced a big crisis

02:04with high inflation uh about 26 27 years ago and after then the country was almost bankrupt

02:13the political system and the public decided never again and therefore for the last 25 years

02:20they have kept public debt under control there's absolutely no worry for bulgaria at all

02:26so why do you think we're seeing these protests do you think it's more a political

02:30or an ideological position exactly that's what we see actually uh happening in many european countries

02:38that somehow the population protests they don't know exactly what but anything that is visible

02:46and a big decision they they think this is the elite which imposes something on them

02:52and therefore they protest without looking at the substance and the substance is that in this case

02:58bulgaria gains a lot perhaps one should also realize that in some other european eastern european

03:05countries the euro was not popular before it was introduced and then after let's say four or five months

03:14when people saw that prices didn't go up there was no inflation then actually very soon they

03:21uh and the european became very popular and i would predict that the same will happen in bulgaria as well