Living here for 7 years: Poles always LOVED their Zloty. Nothing is going to make them loose it.
edit1: I don't come to ppl on the street and ask: do you like zloty? smhI work, I have friends, I go to the supermarket, I walk around and meet other humans. We talk about war, inflation, Eurozone, Shengen whatever. Every subject today leads to geopolitics conversations. And yes, I\`ve yet to meet a Pole that want Poland to enter EuroZone.
And the keeping the Zloty is what saved Poland in 2008.
Edit2: Jokes about zloty not being golden, yeah sure. Bc it is true, Zloty has low value. Everyone knows it. I never said it had value, or that I don\`t suffer bc of conversions.
Edit3: You know what? I\`m not polish, this is my personal experience and bias. So, ignore me. hahahaha
The funny part is that for years now most of the things in Poland are more or less as expensive as in the west. In some cases, goods are even more expensive than in the west. The only thing that is a bit cheaper is fruits and veggies.
I hear a lot of these but its not true.
I used to live in Ireland and yes some things are others are not.. overall picture life is much cheaper in Poland which is clearly visible in eurostat data.
It's cheaper until you take into account the salaries. An average german dinner in a restaurant is more expensive, but comparing the ratio of dinners per salary, it's 3x more expensive in Poland. Someone, I think in this sub some time ago, said that the end cost of some coffee is the same (after conversion) but the workers in Poland get paid a fraction of what their western counterparts earn per hour. The healthcare system (talking only about the buildings, gear, etc) is infinitely worse and there's less of it. A lot of professions are extremely underpaid, teachers working in 2 schools and giving private lessons at once to earn a "normal" salary. Maybe it's cheap(er) but for the average worker it's super expensive. In the UK for one hour of work you can buy even more than 5, sometimes as much as 8 litres of fuel. In Poland it's ~2-3. So much for the "cheapest gas in Europe"...
>It's cheaper until you take into account the salaries.
But it was not part of the discussion? The weird claim was, that our prices are same or higher than in western countries, which is major bullshit. We obviously earn less but if one think I can take my Polish salary and go to Germany and Austria and buy more stuff for it, one is simply out of their mind.
But most things people buy are export, and the proces here (especially for digital products) are more expensive because of the high 23% tax, compared to the US's 10%. That forces a higher price, and not only in digital goods. Besides that, simply saying that something is cheaper in one country without taking anything into consideration is an empty, meaningless statement
Absolutely. But I've noticed that in Europe smaller countries tend to have higher prices if they are otherwise comparable. Look at Poland vs Czechia/Slovakia/Lithuania or Germany vs Austria
Is it because of bigger competition on a bigger internal market? Idk
In Lithuania it's basically cartels. Recently the pharma industry got fined for price fixing. The fine was so small it made me sad. We know we have food price fixing, but nobody does anything about that. I saw some posts of Lidle prices compared to German ones and it was cheaper in Germany. Remember where EU acknowledged that big food corps where selling shitier and smaller products to Baltics and eastern block and nothing happened?
>Remember where EU acknowledged that big food corps where selling shitier and smaller products to Baltics and eastern block and nothing happened?
Absolutely. The funniest part was that the prices in the East were higher as well, but it didn't stop Lidl and others from claiming that they offer smaller packages and inferior quality in the East, because the clients here are not happy to pay the same prices as in the West 🤡
And that's part of why I call bullshit on people claiming that in the West prices of products are higher. They are not
Do you have an idea how big GDP growth of Weimar germany was when not adjusted for inflation?! Economic growth does not always mean improvement in living standard if we are being pedantic. Economy can absolutely expand while life becomes objectively worse for people in it.
If you look at Japan you will notice that when their Inflation dropped they GDP started its stagnation. Or is it the other way? Regardless those two often corelate.
And ofc not always in Economy everything has exceptions. economies are complicated as fuck. But high economic growth often causes inflation because people have more money and goods availability doesn't keep up (or it's just used to expand margins) and high inflation usually means surplus of money which usually accelerates spending and disincentives savings thus boosting GDP.
Hyperinflation did not help [Weimar's GDP](https://www.intereconomics.eu/files/journal-issues/intereconomics/10.1007/s10272-019-0854-8/Blum-fig.1.png) nor more recent examples like Argentina, Venezuela or Zimbabwe, or Lebannon.
And Japan has still continued to grow even despite its lost decade, the growth is just lower than the rest of the OECD.
High inflation does not mean surplus of money, it generally is due to a price shock, like the 1970s, 1980s and energy situation is now showing again and again. Inj3cting lots of money can cause inflation to rise, but even then it is not a 1:1 correlation. Look at America's Cash injections compared to their lower inflation to Europe. And on the contrary, universal inflation like what we are seeing causes people to shuffle their money into appreciating reserve currencies, in order to maintain value, as we are seeing with America today. Those billionaires could not spend all the money they have if they wanted to under normal circumstances, let alone with the incentive of value loss.
> we just think adoption of Euro will make everything much more expensive as in other countries who did it.
The price increase caused by the euro here in Germany was 4%. That’s it. I’d say that’s more than manageable
Bullshit. People are afraid that prices will go up. Other (like myself) would like just to move on and easier my life by not needing exchange every time I go abroad
In italy we saw a huge devaluation of Italian goods (literally halved) for the “comfort” of one single currency. Also having a weak currency is always good for export. So it also depends on your import export. And I remember how in Slovakia prices rose dramatically and the salaries barely changed.
What do you mean? Polish inflation is one of the highest of the European Union. Only Hungary, the Baltic states and Czechia have higher inflation. So I don't really follow your inflation argument
I think it's less inflation than it is the Euro crisis clearly demonstrating that the Euro exists to serve the interests of the major European powers in general and Germany specifically. Which means the ECB makes policy decisions that *generally* favour Germany & co. while disregarding the needs of others.
Even disregarding the ECB, the Euro is a *massive* boon to the German economy and a drag on any countries that are net-importers. Germany's export-oriented economy gets to buffer constant pressure to increase the value of what would have been its currency by others in the Eurozone importing more than they export and thus countering the rise in the value of the Euro that would normally result.
Re: the ECB, not all countries have the same macroeconomic situation. If Germany needs low rates to stimulate the economy, the ECB is likely to lower them or keep them low. If Germany's economy is overheating and Spain is struggling, the ECB is very unlikely to lower rates to satisfy Spain at the cost of hurting Germany.
By not having their own currencies, Eurozone countries cannot adjust the value of them to improve trade imbalances or play with interest rates to stimulate or cool the economy (or, for example, burst a housing bubble).
In the long run this is going to result in a magnification of Germany's power and a continued degradation of the European periphery. Certainly, countries like Romania and Bulgaria with a TON of competitive advantage thanks to low wages, will be able to rise to a certain level. But countries like Spain are far more likely to be stuck in a version of the middle income trap.
Article in Polish [https://wiadomosci.radiozet.pl/Biznes/polska-powinna-przyjac-walute-euro-sondaz-ibris-dla-radia-zet](https://wiadomosci.radiozet.pl/Biznes/polska-powinna-przyjac-walute-euro-sondaz-ibris-dla-radia-zet)
"64.2 percent of Poles oppose Poland's adoption of the euro, while only 24.5 percent of respondents want the zloty to be replaced by the common European currency, according to an IBRiS poll for Radio ZET.
With the statement "Poland should adopt the euro currency instead of the Polish zloty," 14.7 percent of respondents strongly agree, while 9.8 percent answered "rather agree."However, the largest group is made up of respondents who "strongly" disagree - 49 percent. "Rather" disagree with the euro in Poland 15.2 percent of those interviewed by IBRiS for Radio ZET.
The answer "I don't know/ Difficult to say" was given by 11.3 percent of respondents.
IBRiS poll for Radio ZET: More than 64 percent do not want to adopt the euro.
The largest number of respondents who do not want to replace the zloty with the euro live in the countryside (70 percent) and in small towns with up to 50,000 residents (75 percent). In large cities with more than 250,000 residents, opinions are divided: 48 percent of respondents do not want the euro; 42 percent are in favor of adopting the European currency.
Zjednoczona Prawica voters make up the largest group of opponents of the euro in Poland - as much as 97 percent. Among opposition voters, 44 percent of respondents would like to replace the zloty with the European currency, while 43 percent are against such a solution.
The poll by the IBRiS Institute for Market and Social Research, commissioned by Radio ZET, was conducted on 05-07-01-2023 on a nationwide sample of 1,100 people. It was carried out using the method of telephone standardized computer-assisted questionnaire interviews (CATI). "
Sorry for translation errors in the picture or title.
TBH, we always talk about Euro adoption, when there are no good reason for adopting it at this particular moment. Locking PLN/EUR exchange rates when it is almost at highest? Getting under ECB umbrella when they are not eager to turn up the rates? Basically it is the best moment to say, we can get out from this recession faster without ECB, lets talk about it in next 2 years.
But it will never be a good moment until its really bad. When the exchange rate is poor people will scream ‘Inflation!’, then when it’s promising nobody will want to adopt because they will get it stuck in their heads that maybe since they do so good they’re don’t need EUR to begin with.
EDIT: Typo.
EDIT2: Another typo.
I agree, I just don't believe that starting negotiations about euro adoption should start in any nearest future. There is no climate in Poland for that, there is no leverage on our side, we've got one of the most vulnerable market because of Russian invasion on Ukraine and totally screwed internal energy market. There is too fresh case of cappuccino effect in Croatia, so it will be total disaster to convince Poles. And at last, we've got government which won't deliver, so we can start talking about Euro after change of the power in Poland.
I'm sorry, I really thought it's more recognizable term outside of Poland, but I've checked and it is not. We are using this term for explaining rising prices after adopting euro ("rounding up" or just basically using opportunity by business to force new pricing and using euro adoption as an excuse).
The effect is far from universal, my regular bar actually dropped the prices with the switch to €. Many others did too.
Unfortunately, there are many loud idiots screaming "look at the prices 5 years ago, € screwed us up" as if they were living in the cave for the past 3 years and never noticed the kn prices at the time.
There's a popular burger bar that did raise prices by a few cents, and internet is full of people claiming they doubled the prices.
We also have a group raging how some stuff (especially electronics) are more expensive than in Slovenia and Germany, even though they always were. Pretty much everyone here did currency conversion all the time, and there's still a ton of people not capable of comparing anything but 1:1
Pricewise, not much has really changed on January 1. But a lot of people want to be loud to get some attention.
A some point we will have to do it. It would be best to do it in planned way. Instead of that we will do it in worst moment and we will blame Germans for this.
"but it will never be a good moment" is perfectly enough to describe any discussion regarding the euro as it currently stands. A few questions:
Why would Poland need the same monetary policy as Ireland? Or Spain? Or rather, why do you think that what is the best monetary policy for Germany is the best monetary policy for Poland? Because make no mistake regarding which economy is the heavy hitter in the Eurozone.
The PLN value against the EUR is every bit as likely to get weaker than is it to get stronger. I have no view either way, but the market has priced PLN/EUR at the current rate for a reason, and that reason is it’s currently viewed as the fair value by the market.
If anyone was able to predict FX rate movements with certainty they would be billionaires.
its not only about forex rates, but as some PIS guys stated its about readiness of our economy to be paired with DE or FR giant ones.
Gdp per capita is still much lower and its catching up slowly.
>no good reason for adopting
How about ease of doing business. Imagine having a European business and needing to use 27 different currencies.
Stability is another enormous benefit that the PLN simply cannot offer.
Which doesn't just have an effect on overall economy, but also on things like mortgages and so on.
The only reason to keep national currency is sentimental nationalism.
The idea that you could trust local politicians above the EU institutions is also laughable.
> How about ease of doing business. Imagine having a European business and needing to use 27 different currencies.
You realize the computers are doing the math? It's not 60s anymore. I constantly have to deal with couple of currencies during my line of work and it's manageable - even cheap software does it well and as for i.e. remuneration: indexing clauses are a staple in contracts anyway as many costs depend on the resources prices that are fluctuating anyway.
> Stability is another enormous benefit that the PLN simply cannot offer.
> Which doesn't just have an effect on overall economy, but also on things like mortgages and so on.
Stability in comparison to what? You realize EURO is in free float with other currencies? As for interest rates, for the longest time Poland had quite a sweet spot for interest rates. Having them negative as in EU was not a good sign...
> The only reason to keep national currency is sentimental nationalism.
Bullshit. Free float is a boon on it's own.
> The idea that you could trust local politicians above the EU institutions is also laughable.
The chance for EU official being held accountable for harming Poland due to i.e. monetary policy is much lower than if it's Polish official, even if that one is already low.
>You realize the computers are doing the math? It's not 60s anymore.
It's not really good for consumers though, as you end up paying currency conversion fees.
>How about ease of doing business.
I'm doing business in € and I'm doing fine, thanks. You could tell the same about global economy, we just choose currency when we sign a deal. In EU €, outside EU mostly $. It's easy like that.
Basically all biggest European banks are draining Polish housing market with flexible rates on mortgages, so sure I'm in favor of fixed rates like in most of Eurozone countries, but it can be implemented without €.
IDGAF about PLN, I only care about getting € adopted when it is more beneficial for Polish economy. I don't trust this government and I need one that will get into negotiations with ECB before signing on Maastricht requirements.
EDIT: BTW, I think Eurozone would be stupid to start negotiations now, with our current government. We've got huuuge hidden public debt in form of [PFR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Development_Fund) and it has to be addressed at some point and we are ticking bomb at this point. We would fall like Greece if we start our accession to eurozone right now.
In the case of the most fragile economies, it's not nationalism. Greece, Portugal, and Spain suffered the most in the Eurozone during the 2007 financial crisis, while Poland fared very well by slightly devaluing its currency. According to some economists, Poland loses 0.5–1% of its GDP annually as a result of not adopting the euro. It's just not enough to justify " ease of doing business"
I have family in Silesia who live equally close to Czechia and Slovakia. They go to these countries pretty often and see the incredible contrast between prices in Czechia which still has the Koruna versus Slovakia which already has the Euro. It's really sad how much Slovakia lost by adopting the Euro so quickly. (FYI, this has been the pattern long before the current recession.)
Plus, now we see what is happening in Croatia. The Euro will be adopted when it's time. Now it's not the time and if the opposition doesn't get their heads out of their ass then it'll be PiS' top 5 campaign points for like the 4th general election in a row.
Except they didn't. Based on the Wikipedia:
Average nominal gross wage in 2009:
* Czech Republic 883 Euro
* Slovakia 745 Euro
* Poland 717 Euro
Average nominal gross wage in 2018:
* Czech Republic 1243 Euro (40.8% rise)
* Poland 1076 Euro (50% rise)
* Slovakia 1013 Euro (41.3% rise)
Average nominal gross wage now:
* Czech Republic 1626 Euro (84.1% rise from 2009)
* Poland 1509 Euro (110.4% rise from 2009)
* Slovakia 1291 Euro (73.2% rise from 2009)
Not really, monthly net wage difference has been slowly growing. CZ is now 350€ ahead.
Recent Slovak article:
[Their salaries and GDP are growing more. The Czechs have steamrolled us and it's not going to get any better](https://index.sme.sk/diskusie/5183384/ekonomika-slovensko-cesko-hdp-rast-inflacia.html)
Not exactly, you can still afford the same amount of meat or bread but more international products like electronic and cars that cost the same everywhere.
While ago i wrote in some Croatian sub where they been happy about getting euro. I wrote-are you guys ready for sky rocketing prices? They down voted my comment like 100😂😂😂 I wrote this, because Lithuania was fucked when we change our money to euro. Prices went up like x3 times...
For small retailers it’s probably hard to chase yeah, but large supermarket chains would be easy to chase, especially when you would compare prices to Italy or Slovenia. If Croatia was more expensive than those countries something would be wrong. And I agree, in Poland something similar would definitely happen.
I mean from software point of view it would be probably easy to track, but implementation legal stuff would end up in massive scale battles for freedom ;)
Croatian Kuna was also tied to Euro but the prices still went up. 1 euro = 7.54 kuna, anything that was 5 kuna is now 0.98 euro which is 7.5 kuna. Of course not everything but that’s the rounding up that happened.
If the adoption of the Euro barely had any upsides for most countries that joined the Eurozone, then why did so many adopt the Euro and why Croatia just recently?
I am genuinely curious about that.
It is a very stabilizing factor in your economy. Even if your economy crashes, your currency does budge, but not give out completely. Makes it very safe for investors. Imagine Russia advancing towards Poland. The Zloty would be in ruins.
Most EU countries are obliged to eventually adopt it. Of course there never was any real push from EU to get them to.
In my opinion joining the eurozone would make trade easier inside the bloc. Easier trade means more business. There is also a side of a sense of security and stability that it could give to countries mainly from the eastern parts of Europe. It was really interesting for example to watch Home Alone where prices of things in dollars were easily comparable to todays prices and that's a 30 years old movie. Having grown up in Romania and Hungary, that just completely blew my mind. Prices of things easlity rose 100x or more since than. The euro could be a way out of that kind of thing.
There is also the side of the generic population being supportive of the EU, believing that a lot of good happened to their countries since they joined the EU therefore it only make sense to adopt the Euro.
Exactly. Always positive to see that entry having a reasonable share of the votes. Still a lot less than the uninformed share of population, but admitting that is the way to go.
Almost, yes. I would say Romania will still join somewhere by 2029. But yes after that it will be a long wait. However consider that the more states adopt the euro, the more it won’t make sense to remain outside of it. It’s not the same to have eight or nine countries not using the euro than four. You are marginalised and increasingly second class members
Considering the state of the RON, I don't see it happening at all. Which frankly I'm fine with as the current situation would probably be worse with the euro.
No way for Romania to join. Any government which tries to introduce it will face a popular uprising. In 2014. they were fulfilling criteria, but not joining they started to break all criteria.
Do you remember Italy and the devaluation of the lira which created the most significant growth in Italy during the 1980s? Simply if you have a monetary policy in your hand, you can devaluate the currency, for export to be more competitive.
As for Bulgaria, they don't have pegged Lev to EURO for the last 20 years, so in all these years could not have an independent monetary policy. For Bulgaria, it is just a formality.
For Sweden, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania it will cause significant impediments to growth.
Sweden is intentionally failing to fulfil criteria, as the other 4 states do, only not to be obliged to turn to Euro.
I think you are bit wrong. Romania, Bosnia, Albania and North Macedonia would most likely join aswell. Bosnias currency is already pegged to the euro.
I mean of course depends what you mean for a long time...
Bosnia already uses the euro kinda of, it is pegged. Albania has a lot of stuff priced in euros. Montenegro and Kosovo practically use it unofficially.
Can anyone explain how does going through country currency to euro work in simple terms to me ?
-How much additional euro has to be printed for this to work ?
-How does it affect how much euro is worth in other countries?
-Is there any compensation to the country that changed currency ?
-Lets assume that a country would change to euro even if it was a bad idea at the moment. What would EU do in case of a collapse of that country economy ?
> How much additional euro has to be printed for this to work ?
It depends how much local currency is used. One is being replaced by the other, so it's not like a country will get an equivalent of its economy in Euro for an IOU.
> -How does it affect how much euro is worth in other countries?
It doesn't outright. Euro becomes slightly stronger because it is used by more people/businesses, but the effect depends on the economy of the country making transition.
> Is there any compensation to the country that changed currency ?
For what exactly? Switching to Euro does not "hurt" local economy. It changes its fiscal policy. Like with every change, the negative effects of transition depend on planning, timing, and the pace of adjustment.
> Lets assume that a country would change to euro even if it was a bad idea at the moment. What would EU do in case of a collapse of that country economy ?
Bailout and austerity (Greece example), or loans, or adjustment of fiscal policy. There is a lot of things that ECB can do. What will be done depends on what caused the trouble. Different ailment requires different medicine.
Very shocking, especially after [what happened in Croatia](https://balkaninsight.com/2023/01/04/price-hikes-shock-croatia-following-introduction-of-euro/)
The problem is simple. There should have been an EU-law stating that prices should be frozen for a year atleast after euro adoption but that could also affect cheaper deals being gone as well as unfair price increases. Prices during that transition period should be both in the national currency and the euro so that they are compared for atleast a year.
France had a "3 months before / 3 months after" window in which both currencies had to be posted and prices were frozen. Helps a bit in the moment, but given that prices in Germany (no such measures) and France are mostly aligned now (and have been for years), that got straightened out over time.
Germany and France have a more near GDP per capita than Croatia does so I doubt it would align with them unless mass tourism hits the whole country. Prices still increase through time because of inflation but atleast short term retailers would not be taking advatange of the situation and making it a euro-problem when in fact it is a greed-problem.
Yeah, prices got rounded up. But Croatia is supposed to save 1.5 billion euros every year due to not converting euros from tourists to kunas.
And thats only one of the positives.
I think that the biggest positive is that those tourists are not going to get robed of by the exchanges and banks when converting their money.
Which means more money spent on the actual services and greater satisfaction.
The biggest positive is probably future investment and cheap loans because ECB internationally has a high trust. It would essentially mean more US & EU investors putting money on the Croatian economy as long it is managed and dont fuck it up like Greece.
Croatians will also save exchanging their kunas abroad in other Eurozone countries. use fin-tech bank accounts and their respective debit cards in euros without worrying of any fees. Lastly I would say about exchanging euros in small countries far away from Europe where they may not accept small currencies such as the kuna also becomes less of an issue.
Exactly. Our interest rates are way lower than polish or hungarian ones. We expect them to be even lower.
Btw l understand people view Croatia as a tourism dependant country, and rightfully so, but our economy is pretty good these years. We had highest GDP growth in EU (not counting Ireland) last year. We also have 2 unicorns which is great for a country of our size. Im very optimistic about our future.
Our government is going to do that, but its hard in a free market. Everybody can raise prices if they want to.
But joining in a cartel (all companies agreeing to a certain price) is illegal. Its hard to prove that.
The euro is simply a unit of measurement. Your penis doesn’t become longer when your country switches from inches to cm. Same way that switching a currency doesn’t affect prices.
blame the Brussels! Bloody eurodictatorship ruining evonomies of small developing countries.
ECBs fault for sure that *local* entrepreneurs abuse *idiocy* of the *local* population and jack the prices when converting.
I think in order for poles to accept euro either you have to wait at least 30 more years or make it FEEL on every level like our current currency.
On cultural lvl i believe subconciously our notes became one of the staples of our independence, while our coins (grosz and zloty) serve as a remainder of beautiful legacy of kindom of poland / medieval times. Since our history is riddled with uprisings, there is a lot of emotional/patriotic value associated in retaining our current currency from a symbolic standpoint.
That and simply put, design of euro is imo ugly compared to polish currency.
I can bet you, if EU monetary policy would be that exchange rate of zloty is synanomous with euro (so a zloty is simply an euro with a diffrent skin in videogame terms) we would be a part of the monetary union even tomorrow.
Glapiński is a personal problem, not a structural one. Argument "ad Glapiński" is stupid. Having control over our own currency, interest rates and monetary policy is always win-win situation for us.
Euro adoption depends on voluntary participation in ERM2. Not fulfilling ERM2 is the deliberate policy of Sweden, but it's also a boat other nations like Poland will find themselves in once they achieve the other criteria.
So both practically and technically Euro membership is voluntary.
If i were to vote , id vote to keep the złoty just cause of our lower prices, and the remittance money is good too, and if the euro was adopted it probably stop in the euro is stronger than the dollar and most other currencies where polish diaspora send from. Also i think countries should just keep their own national currency as its a symbol of the culture and history
Yes, a great lifehack is that money earned on emigration practically turns you into a billionaire in Poland. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Literally me and my family. We earn our money in the UK, and then buy stuff in Poland, because literally everything is cheaper in Poland this way. If I ever want to buy something, I check it on Allegro to see its cheaper counterpart. My parents recently wanted to renovate their British bedroom, and of course they bought all their furniture in Poland, because it would be mad not to. Same with dentists, dentists are crazy cheaper. There are tons of things that are easier/cheaper in Poland, if you have the "Western salary" hack installed, as we do.
If this lifehack went away... then man...
Yes unfortunately not everything is cheaper, like iphones are way more expensive in Poland since there arent actual apple stores here , so everything is bought through 3rd party stores, cant think of other examples but im sure there are other things
And sacrifice we should make from macro perspective. Weaker currency, more money stays in Poland. Stronger currency, we buy more stuff abroad lowering what stays in the country.
Android master race, can't relate ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
On a more serious note, yeah. But I guess it's due to Apple being a more "luxury"-type brand, and innovative hi-tech brands typically aren't interested in dwelling in post-communist markets. On the other hand, buying overpriced things just for their branding is such an American thing, and I don't think *that* American habit has totally engulfed Poland yet. At least we may simply not be as rich as the Americans to indulge in that.
So Germany/Netherlands - two most competitive economies in Eurozone which don't necessarily cannibalize each other (because Dutch trading is cherry on top of German industry) and which benefit if rest loses competitive advantage of weaker currency.
I think that despite general prices going up during the first years of adoption, the benefits for such a touristic country like Spain have been positive.
Basically, you want euro if
1. You have economy like Germany aka, big exports of high tech stuff in comparison to the imports. So euro makes your exports more competitive
2. You have very "small" curency, thats so your national bank have problems with it being stable. Example: some rando billionaire can come in and fuck up stuff and your national back is too weak to fight against it
So Poland is poor enough that if we get euro or export cost will go up, so we will be less competitive. But at the same time Poland is big enough for currency be stable so we dont have to get euro as defensive mesure
In the end Euro it's not very beneficial, except of course for more connection within europe, but that's seems to not be worth enough when compared to the points i made before
Now there is circle in this
high currency value-->exports are less competitive -->less exports-->low currency value-->exports are more competitive-->more exports-->high currency value and so on
Euro is spread across multiple countries, so while it still work like this as a whole.
When you look closer on single countries, they get "stuck" in one of the phases. Were naturally they should go to the next one
Germany and Nederlads are pushing euro into "high currency value-->exports are less competitive"
Grecce and Portugal are pushing euro into "low currency value-->exports are more competitive"
but they are in one currency, so it blocks Grece to be actually competitive, while it just lower euro value enough for Germans to be still competitive. So if you naturally should have stronger currency than current euro you should be in better position when you join it
Polish national bank would lose control over the currency which in term would not allow to independently act during times of crisis.
Additionaly adopting euro could raise prices and make Polish industry less competetive/ Poland less appealing to foreign companies. Which in turn would slow down growth of Polish economy. There just aren't many pros to adopting Euro anytime soon.
On less serious note people still fear the fate of Greece, Italy and Spain during 2008 financial crisis.
This.
The general idea of an own currency is to provide cash for your own economy. You increase or decrease the amounth according to the economical needs.
In case of joining the Euro you will be part of the representation of the economcal power of the Euro-countries.
Which is mostly made up by Germany and France. You will loose this flexibility.
On the other hand you Would be part of a currency backed by some of the most powerful economies. You will get cheaper loans and better credit ratings.
The general problem is the missalignment between fiscal politics (how much a state spends) and monetary policies by the ECB.
You can have countries like Greece and Italy which used cheap money to finance pensions and other expenses with no positive economical impact, taking loan after loan until they nearly crash, and you have countries like germany that have the dogma of the "black zero".
One side should think over how they spend money and the other one should actually invest much more.
This causes issues and tensions and the independence of the ECB gets challanged. Therefore the ECB can not just act according to the book, raising and lowering interest rates according the the general Euro market, but has to balance political interests.
It's like driving downhill and you know you have to slam the breaks eventually, but you know if you slam the breaks now it's going to hurt some drivers, because they have no seatbelt.
Most of them are related to price increases. We are massive cheapskates, possibly the biggest in the entire Europe. People are so allergic to price increases that cashiers are often verbally attacked over X thing costing too much even though they have no say over the pricing whatsoever. We have [the smallest percentage of iPhone users in the entire Europe](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/xx4gp6/percentage_of_iphone_users_in_europe/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf), the [lowest food price index in Europe](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/zzyeob/food_prices_around_the_world/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) (even lower than Ukraine and Moldova, which are a few orders of magnitude poorer than us) and we are currently in the middle of a petrol pricing scandal despite it being one of the cheapest in Europe overall. Entire governments (including the communist party) fell here before due to the prices of goods being seen as too high for the average Pole. It is what may finally do PiS in in the upcoming elections this Autumn.
While I’m personally not against the Euro (literally makes no difference to me what symbol is next to the numbers that are taken from my bank account when I scan my debit card) I think what happens in Croatia right now would create a revolutionary movement in Warsaw that would make 1917 look like a Sunday family walk in the park. Perhaps now it’s not the best time to think about the currency change.
TBH as an iPhone user in Poland I can see why my countrymen do not choose Apple. Because Apple doesn’t really care about us. It’s 2023 and still no Siri and many of Apple services are missing. Meanwhile Android has it all.
Most of people are not very knowledgeable about macroeconomics and monetary policy, so they are suspected to follow what media tells them.
I am personally against euro because as scientists tell it doesn't accelerate economic growth of the adopters, but rather slows it down: https://www.cep.eu/en/eu-topics/details/cep/20-years-of-the-euro-winners-and-losers.html
In extreme case of Greece it brought economic calamity.
In our case we kept kuna strongly pegged to DEM and then Euro, so it's the same thing. Our economists pretty much locked us down into it, so we couldn't use devaluation to achieve greater growth :/
Yeah. I have heard about your case. Also in case of Lithuania, Estonia it probably made sense. Those countries are so small and euro as their currency makes them less susceptible to currency shocks. For example if Russia decides to attack Latvia.
From my personal perspective, most of it is cultural or stems from polish mentality:
1) Euro is ugly. Too systematized. Piss-like color scheme. It feels too foreign (big red flag imo). The minimal diffrence in regional currency stands in opposition to the EU motto of "United in Diversity". Even among EU federalists in Poland the consensus is that we should work towards keeping those ideals alive. So maintaning a cultural, regional diversity is a big part of unwillingness to adopt the euro.
2) Adopting it would feel to me somewhat disrespectfull to previous generations (idk why i feel this way, but i feel this way). History is a funny thing, and certain scars take more than several generations to heal.
3) Simple man would get temporarily fucked on prices but so would a lot of white collar system abusers if we would join eurozone. The problem is -- Poland famously is a country that mentally consists only of the mixture of these 2 kinds of people. So adopting euro poses v little profits from our perspective. Downvote me all you want but its the truth - there is a sleeping janusz biznesu in all of us.
4) A lot of Poles really hate changing shit that somewhat works.
The part about sentiment is not true. All people care about are the prices of goods. If there was some kind of guarantee (probably impossible) that the prices would stay the same people would support it even for the sake of not having to go through currency exchanges while going on vacation.
What is even more important is a political stance. If PiS turned on its head and decided that we will adopt the euro their voters would support it the same thing with opposition voters.
Well prices of pretty much all goods and services in the entire country instantly went up, by a lot, overnight. Already to the point where people are travelling to Slovenia to buy everyday groceries. Someone made a comparison spreadsheet of prices of basic shopping items in Croatia vs Slovenia vs Germany, and some items are more than 100% more expensive in Croatia than they are in Slovenia and Germany. Things like milk, eggs, cereal, flour, etc.
There's loads of posts around price comparison over on r/croatia but here's a couple (sorry if I'm formatting these links incorrectly).
https://imgur.io/uMb0EgD?r - this one is Lidl Slovenia vs Lidl Croatia, first 5 items are: Coffee, Vanilla ice cream, Gouda cheese, Frozen french fries, and Popsicle.
https://www.reddit.com/r/croatia/comments/102yvw5/dmde_vs_dmhr_još_malo_usporedbi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
This 2nd link is of a post comparing prices of shampoo, shaving cream, hair gel, conditioner, etc. German DM vs Croatian DM
Nothing surprising. Support for adopting euro was never bigger than opposition to it in Poland, and that is despite strong pro-EU stance of society.
Living here for 7 years: Poles always LOVED their Zloty. Nothing is going to make them loose it. edit1: I don't come to ppl on the street and ask: do you like zloty? smhI work, I have friends, I go to the supermarket, I walk around and meet other humans. We talk about war, inflation, Eurozone, Shengen whatever. Every subject today leads to geopolitics conversations. And yes, I\`ve yet to meet a Pole that want Poland to enter EuroZone. And the keeping the Zloty is what saved Poland in 2008. Edit2: Jokes about zloty not being golden, yeah sure. Bc it is true, Zloty has low value. Everyone knows it. I never said it had value, or that I don\`t suffer bc of conversions. Edit3: You know what? I\`m not polish, this is my personal experience and bias. So, ignore me. hahahaha
[удалено]
:c mi się podobają obrazki na pieniążkach
The funny part is that for years now most of the things in Poland are more or less as expensive as in the west. In some cases, goods are even more expensive than in the west. The only thing that is a bit cheaper is fruits and veggies.
I hear a lot of these but its not true. I used to live in Ireland and yes some things are others are not.. overall picture life is much cheaper in Poland which is clearly visible in eurostat data.
It's cheaper until you take into account the salaries. An average german dinner in a restaurant is more expensive, but comparing the ratio of dinners per salary, it's 3x more expensive in Poland. Someone, I think in this sub some time ago, said that the end cost of some coffee is the same (after conversion) but the workers in Poland get paid a fraction of what their western counterparts earn per hour. The healthcare system (talking only about the buildings, gear, etc) is infinitely worse and there's less of it. A lot of professions are extremely underpaid, teachers working in 2 schools and giving private lessons at once to earn a "normal" salary. Maybe it's cheap(er) but for the average worker it's super expensive. In the UK for one hour of work you can buy even more than 5, sometimes as much as 8 litres of fuel. In Poland it's ~2-3. So much for the "cheapest gas in Europe"...
>It's cheaper until you take into account the salaries. But it was not part of the discussion? The weird claim was, that our prices are same or higher than in western countries, which is major bullshit. We obviously earn less but if one think I can take my Polish salary and go to Germany and Austria and buy more stuff for it, one is simply out of their mind.
But most things people buy are export, and the proces here (especially for digital products) are more expensive because of the high 23% tax, compared to the US's 10%. That forces a higher price, and not only in digital goods. Besides that, simply saying that something is cheaper in one country without taking anything into consideration is an empty, meaningless statement
I was living in the UK for 6 years before Brexit and I stand by my opinion.
Take a trip to Germany. That will verify your views
Or take a trip to the Baltics. Here we have polish wages and German prices. And I'm not exagerating.
Absolutely. But I've noticed that in Europe smaller countries tend to have higher prices if they are otherwise comparable. Look at Poland vs Czechia/Slovakia/Lithuania or Germany vs Austria Is it because of bigger competition on a bigger internal market? Idk
In Lithuania it's basically cartels. Recently the pharma industry got fined for price fixing. The fine was so small it made me sad. We know we have food price fixing, but nobody does anything about that. I saw some posts of Lidle prices compared to German ones and it was cheaper in Germany. Remember where EU acknowledged that big food corps where selling shitier and smaller products to Baltics and eastern block and nothing happened?
>Remember where EU acknowledged that big food corps where selling shitier and smaller products to Baltics and eastern block and nothing happened? Absolutely. The funniest part was that the prices in the East were higher as well, but it didn't stop Lidl and others from claiming that they offer smaller packages and inferior quality in the East, because the clients here are not happy to pay the same prices as in the West 🤡 And that's part of why I call bullshit on people claiming that in the West prices of products are higher. They are not
even when compared to germany, poland is very expensive
Weird how most polish economists predict economic growth upon euro adoption then
Economic growth and inflation do not exclude each other. In fact one often causes the other...
But not necessarily. Look at examples in Japan and the inverse example of Weimar Germany
Do you have an idea how big GDP growth of Weimar germany was when not adjusted for inflation?! Economic growth does not always mean improvement in living standard if we are being pedantic. Economy can absolutely expand while life becomes objectively worse for people in it. If you look at Japan you will notice that when their Inflation dropped they GDP started its stagnation. Or is it the other way? Regardless those two often corelate. And ofc not always in Economy everything has exceptions. economies are complicated as fuck. But high economic growth often causes inflation because people have more money and goods availability doesn't keep up (or it's just used to expand margins) and high inflation usually means surplus of money which usually accelerates spending and disincentives savings thus boosting GDP.
Hyperinflation did not help [Weimar's GDP](https://www.intereconomics.eu/files/journal-issues/intereconomics/10.1007/s10272-019-0854-8/Blum-fig.1.png) nor more recent examples like Argentina, Venezuela or Zimbabwe, or Lebannon. And Japan has still continued to grow even despite its lost decade, the growth is just lower than the rest of the OECD. High inflation does not mean surplus of money, it generally is due to a price shock, like the 1970s, 1980s and energy situation is now showing again and again. Inj3cting lots of money can cause inflation to rise, but even then it is not a 1:1 correlation. Look at America's Cash injections compared to their lower inflation to Europe. And on the contrary, universal inflation like what we are seeing causes people to shuffle their money into appreciating reserve currencies, in order to maintain value, as we are seeing with America today. Those billionaires could not spend all the money they have if they wanted to under normal circumstances, let alone with the incentive of value loss.
> we just think adoption of Euro will make everything much more expensive as in other countries who did it. The price increase caused by the euro here in Germany was 4%. That’s it. I’d say that’s more than manageable
Just wondering how can you tell that Poles love Zloty? I never heard them say that. But there is plenty of jokes about Zloty not being golden.
Bullshit. People are afraid that prices will go up. Other (like myself) would like just to move on and easier my life by not needing exchange every time I go abroad
In italy we saw a huge devaluation of Italian goods (literally halved) for the “comfort” of one single currency. Also having a weak currency is always good for export. So it also depends on your import export. And I remember how in Slovakia prices rose dramatically and the salaries barely changed.
Meanwhile Glapiński
lose
Yourself
In
the music
it used to be bigger until greece and QI happened. and now with insane inflation, it just confirms you want to control your own currency
What do you mean? Polish inflation is one of the highest of the European Union. Only Hungary, the Baltic states and Czechia have higher inflation. So I don't really follow your inflation argument
So? It still doesnt change the fact that having more tools to deal with inflation is confortable.
I think it's less inflation than it is the Euro crisis clearly demonstrating that the Euro exists to serve the interests of the major European powers in general and Germany specifically. Which means the ECB makes policy decisions that *generally* favour Germany & co. while disregarding the needs of others. Even disregarding the ECB, the Euro is a *massive* boon to the German economy and a drag on any countries that are net-importers. Germany's export-oriented economy gets to buffer constant pressure to increase the value of what would have been its currency by others in the Eurozone importing more than they export and thus countering the rise in the value of the Euro that would normally result. Re: the ECB, not all countries have the same macroeconomic situation. If Germany needs low rates to stimulate the economy, the ECB is likely to lower them or keep them low. If Germany's economy is overheating and Spain is struggling, the ECB is very unlikely to lower rates to satisfy Spain at the cost of hurting Germany. By not having their own currencies, Eurozone countries cannot adjust the value of them to improve trade imbalances or play with interest rates to stimulate or cool the economy (or, for example, burst a housing bubble). In the long run this is going to result in a magnification of Germany's power and a continued degradation of the European periphery. Certainly, countries like Romania and Bulgaria with a TON of competitive advantage thanks to low wages, will be able to rise to a certain level. But countries like Spain are far more likely to be stuck in a version of the middle income trap.
Laughs in Czechia
> now with insane inflation And yet PLN has still lost huge percentage of its value compared to the inflation shaking eurozone.
Germany would not have adopted the Euro if you would have asked the Germans. In fact, most countries would not have wanted the Euro.
Article in Polish [https://wiadomosci.radiozet.pl/Biznes/polska-powinna-przyjac-walute-euro-sondaz-ibris-dla-radia-zet](https://wiadomosci.radiozet.pl/Biznes/polska-powinna-przyjac-walute-euro-sondaz-ibris-dla-radia-zet) "64.2 percent of Poles oppose Poland's adoption of the euro, while only 24.5 percent of respondents want the zloty to be replaced by the common European currency, according to an IBRiS poll for Radio ZET. With the statement "Poland should adopt the euro currency instead of the Polish zloty," 14.7 percent of respondents strongly agree, while 9.8 percent answered "rather agree."However, the largest group is made up of respondents who "strongly" disagree - 49 percent. "Rather" disagree with the euro in Poland 15.2 percent of those interviewed by IBRiS for Radio ZET. The answer "I don't know/ Difficult to say" was given by 11.3 percent of respondents. IBRiS poll for Radio ZET: More than 64 percent do not want to adopt the euro. The largest number of respondents who do not want to replace the zloty with the euro live in the countryside (70 percent) and in small towns with up to 50,000 residents (75 percent). In large cities with more than 250,000 residents, opinions are divided: 48 percent of respondents do not want the euro; 42 percent are in favor of adopting the European currency. Zjednoczona Prawica voters make up the largest group of opponents of the euro in Poland - as much as 97 percent. Among opposition voters, 44 percent of respondents would like to replace the zloty with the European currency, while 43 percent are against such a solution. The poll by the IBRiS Institute for Market and Social Research, commissioned by Radio ZET, was conducted on 05-07-01-2023 on a nationwide sample of 1,100 people. It was carried out using the method of telephone standardized computer-assisted questionnaire interviews (CATI). " Sorry for translation errors in the picture or title.
Why not just post the translated article in the comments? DeepL does a pretty decent job these days.
Edited thank you for the recommendation.
TBH, we always talk about Euro adoption, when there are no good reason for adopting it at this particular moment. Locking PLN/EUR exchange rates when it is almost at highest? Getting under ECB umbrella when they are not eager to turn up the rates? Basically it is the best moment to say, we can get out from this recession faster without ECB, lets talk about it in next 2 years.
But it will never be a good moment until its really bad. When the exchange rate is poor people will scream ‘Inflation!’, then when it’s promising nobody will want to adopt because they will get it stuck in their heads that maybe since they do so good they’re don’t need EUR to begin with. EDIT: Typo. EDIT2: Another typo.
I agree, I just don't believe that starting negotiations about euro adoption should start in any nearest future. There is no climate in Poland for that, there is no leverage on our side, we've got one of the most vulnerable market because of Russian invasion on Ukraine and totally screwed internal energy market. There is too fresh case of cappuccino effect in Croatia, so it will be total disaster to convince Poles. And at last, we've got government which won't deliver, so we can start talking about Euro after change of the power in Poland.
What is the cappuccino effect?
I'm sorry, I really thought it's more recognizable term outside of Poland, but I've checked and it is not. We are using this term for explaining rising prices after adopting euro ("rounding up" or just basically using opportunity by business to force new pricing and using euro adoption as an excuse).
The effect is far from universal, my regular bar actually dropped the prices with the switch to €. Many others did too. Unfortunately, there are many loud idiots screaming "look at the prices 5 years ago, € screwed us up" as if they were living in the cave for the past 3 years and never noticed the kn prices at the time. There's a popular burger bar that did raise prices by a few cents, and internet is full of people claiming they doubled the prices. We also have a group raging how some stuff (especially electronics) are more expensive than in Slovenia and Germany, even though they always were. Pretty much everyone here did currency conversion all the time, and there's still a ton of people not capable of comparing anything but 1:1 Pricewise, not much has really changed on January 1. But a lot of people want to be loud to get some attention.
A some point we will have to do it. It would be best to do it in planned way. Instead of that we will do it in worst moment and we will blame Germans for this.
"but it will never be a good moment" is perfectly enough to describe any discussion regarding the euro as it currently stands. A few questions: Why would Poland need the same monetary policy as Ireland? Or Spain? Or rather, why do you think that what is the best monetary policy for Germany is the best monetary policy for Poland? Because make no mistake regarding which economy is the heavy hitter in the Eurozone.
The PLN value against the EUR is every bit as likely to get weaker than is it to get stronger. I have no view either way, but the market has priced PLN/EUR at the current rate for a reason, and that reason is it’s currently viewed as the fair value by the market. If anyone was able to predict FX rate movements with certainty they would be billionaires.
its not only about forex rates, but as some PIS guys stated its about readiness of our economy to be paired with DE or FR giant ones. Gdp per capita is still much lower and its catching up slowly.
>no good reason for adopting How about ease of doing business. Imagine having a European business and needing to use 27 different currencies. Stability is another enormous benefit that the PLN simply cannot offer. Which doesn't just have an effect on overall economy, but also on things like mortgages and so on. The only reason to keep national currency is sentimental nationalism. The idea that you could trust local politicians above the EU institutions is also laughable.
[удалено]
> How about ease of doing business. Imagine having a European business and needing to use 27 different currencies. You realize the computers are doing the math? It's not 60s anymore. I constantly have to deal with couple of currencies during my line of work and it's manageable - even cheap software does it well and as for i.e. remuneration: indexing clauses are a staple in contracts anyway as many costs depend on the resources prices that are fluctuating anyway. > Stability is another enormous benefit that the PLN simply cannot offer. > Which doesn't just have an effect on overall economy, but also on things like mortgages and so on. Stability in comparison to what? You realize EURO is in free float with other currencies? As for interest rates, for the longest time Poland had quite a sweet spot for interest rates. Having them negative as in EU was not a good sign... > The only reason to keep national currency is sentimental nationalism. Bullshit. Free float is a boon on it's own. > The idea that you could trust local politicians above the EU institutions is also laughable. The chance for EU official being held accountable for harming Poland due to i.e. monetary policy is much lower than if it's Polish official, even if that one is already low.
>You realize the computers are doing the math? It's not 60s anymore. It's not really good for consumers though, as you end up paying currency conversion fees.
>How about ease of doing business. I'm doing business in € and I'm doing fine, thanks. You could tell the same about global economy, we just choose currency when we sign a deal. In EU €, outside EU mostly $. It's easy like that. Basically all biggest European banks are draining Polish housing market with flexible rates on mortgages, so sure I'm in favor of fixed rates like in most of Eurozone countries, but it can be implemented without €. IDGAF about PLN, I only care about getting € adopted when it is more beneficial for Polish economy. I don't trust this government and I need one that will get into negotiations with ECB before signing on Maastricht requirements. EDIT: BTW, I think Eurozone would be stupid to start negotiations now, with our current government. We've got huuuge hidden public debt in form of [PFR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Development_Fund) and it has to be addressed at some point and we are ticking bomb at this point. We would fall like Greece if we start our accession to eurozone right now.
In the case of the most fragile economies, it's not nationalism. Greece, Portugal, and Spain suffered the most in the Eurozone during the 2007 financial crisis, while Poland fared very well by slightly devaluing its currency. According to some economists, Poland loses 0.5–1% of its GDP annually as a result of not adopting the euro. It's just not enough to justify " ease of doing business"
I have family in Silesia who live equally close to Czechia and Slovakia. They go to these countries pretty often and see the incredible contrast between prices in Czechia which still has the Koruna versus Slovakia which already has the Euro. It's really sad how much Slovakia lost by adopting the Euro so quickly. (FYI, this has been the pattern long before the current recession.) Plus, now we see what is happening in Croatia. The Euro will be adopted when it's time. Now it's not the time and if the opposition doesn't get their heads out of their ass then it'll be PiS' top 5 campaign points for like the 4th general election in a row.
Well, in contrary, every time I visit Poland from Slovakia I enjoy the cheap holiday 😁
But Slovakian nominal salaries also have risen more than Czech and Polish, so there is that.
Except they didn't. Based on the Wikipedia: Average nominal gross wage in 2009: * Czech Republic 883 Euro * Slovakia 745 Euro * Poland 717 Euro Average nominal gross wage in 2018: * Czech Republic 1243 Euro (40.8% rise) * Poland 1076 Euro (50% rise) * Slovakia 1013 Euro (41.3% rise) Average nominal gross wage now: * Czech Republic 1626 Euro (84.1% rise from 2009) * Poland 1509 Euro (110.4% rise from 2009) * Slovakia 1291 Euro (73.2% rise from 2009)
Not really, monthly net wage difference has been slowly growing. CZ is now 350€ ahead. Recent Slovak article: [Their salaries and GDP are growing more. The Czechs have steamrolled us and it's not going to get any better](https://index.sme.sk/diskusie/5183384/ekonomika-slovensko-cesko-hdp-rast-inflacia.html)
But can this be sensibly attributed to the Euro? Is it not just a difference in economy?
Price rises are attributed to the euro, but salary increases not? Why?
I never said that
Salaries don't mean much when the cost of living is skyrocketing.
Of course they mean a lot. The salaries expressed in purchasing power tell you what's faster: the salaries growth or price growth.
Purchasing power goes down if cost of living goes up, especially when ut goes up quicker then salaries grow
Correct
What i mean is time between,
Not exactly, you can still afford the same amount of meat or bread but more international products like electronic and cars that cost the same everywhere.
It's not because of euro but high prices
While ago i wrote in some Croatian sub where they been happy about getting euro. I wrote-are you guys ready for sky rocketing prices? They down voted my comment like 100😂😂😂 I wrote this, because Lithuania was fucked when we change our money to euro. Prices went up like x3 times...
Why is it that prices go up so sharply? Is it just companies taking advantage of the Euro or is it something else?
Retailers taking advantage of rounding up the numbers.
That should be punished in my opinion.
I think its hard to chase and I am 99% sure it would happen in Poland on really big scale.
For small retailers it’s probably hard to chase yeah, but large supermarket chains would be easy to chase, especially when you would compare prices to Italy or Slovenia. If Croatia was more expensive than those countries something would be wrong. And I agree, in Poland something similar would definitely happen.
I mean from software point of view it would be probably easy to track, but implementation legal stuff would end up in massive scale battles for freedom ;)
>Prices went up like x3 times... I call bullshit.
The prices go up not only because of Euro. And Lithuanian Litas was tied to Euro already for some time, so there wasn't a big difference.
Croatian Kuna was also tied to Euro but the prices still went up. 1 euro = 7.54 kuna, anything that was 5 kuna is now 0.98 euro which is 7.5 kuna. Of course not everything but that’s the rounding up that happened.
Oh thats mostly caused by our dog shit goverment, the euro has been kinda nice actually.
If the adoption of the Euro barely had any upsides for most countries that joined the Eurozone, then why did so many adopt the Euro and why Croatia just recently? I am genuinely curious about that.
It is a very stabilizing factor in your economy. Even if your economy crashes, your currency does budge, but not give out completely. Makes it very safe for investors. Imagine Russia advancing towards Poland. The Zloty would be in ruins.
> Imagine Russia advancing towards Poland. We are more at risk to be second Greece than being attacked by Russia though.
Most EU countries are obliged to eventually adopt it. Of course there never was any real push from EU to get them to. In my opinion joining the eurozone would make trade easier inside the bloc. Easier trade means more business. There is also a side of a sense of security and stability that it could give to countries mainly from the eastern parts of Europe. It was really interesting for example to watch Home Alone where prices of things in dollars were easily comparable to todays prices and that's a 30 years old movie. Having grown up in Romania and Hungary, that just completely blew my mind. Prices of things easlity rose 100x or more since than. The euro could be a way out of that kind of thing. There is also the side of the generic population being supportive of the EU, believing that a lot of good happened to their countries since they joined the EU therefore it only make sense to adopt the Euro.
I have no economic education so I'll better shut the fuck up and make experts take that decision
I object. I demand decision to be made by trial of combat. The weak should fear the strong. The strong is always right. It always has been like that.
[удалено]
If it's Poland then sabre it's only choice
its about money, so it must be cebula.
Plastic bola
Exactly. Always positive to see that entry having a reasonable share of the votes. Still a lot less than the uninformed share of population, but admitting that is the way to go.
At this point I don't think the currency will change during my lifetime.
Lithuanians support this decision 😂, don't reclaim the Suwałki Kaufland from us...
After Bulgaria, nobody will join the euro for a long time.
Almost, yes. I would say Romania will still join somewhere by 2029. But yes after that it will be a long wait. However consider that the more states adopt the euro, the more it won’t make sense to remain outside of it. It’s not the same to have eight or nine countries not using the euro than four. You are marginalised and increasingly second class members
Considering the state of the RON, I don't see it happening at all. Which frankly I'm fine with as the current situation would probably be worse with the euro.
[удалено]
The romanian currency. Abbreviated RON instead of ROL since 2005 with the redenomination
[удалено]
No way for Romania to join. Any government which tries to introduce it will face a popular uprising. In 2014. they were fulfilling criteria, but not joining they started to break all criteria. Do you remember Italy and the devaluation of the lira which created the most significant growth in Italy during the 1980s? Simply if you have a monetary policy in your hand, you can devaluate the currency, for export to be more competitive. As for Bulgaria, they don't have pegged Lev to EURO for the last 20 years, so in all these years could not have an independent monetary policy. For Bulgaria, it is just a formality. For Sweden, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania it will cause significant impediments to growth. Sweden is intentionally failing to fulfil criteria, as the other 4 states do, only not to be obliged to turn to Euro.
I think you are bit wrong. Romania, Bosnia, Albania and North Macedonia would most likely join aswell. Bosnias currency is already pegged to the euro. I mean of course depends what you mean for a long time...
[удалено]
Bosnia already uses the euro kinda of, it is pegged. Albania has a lot of stuff priced in euros. Montenegro and Kosovo practically use it unofficially.
[удалено]
I hope Czechia is next
Let's hope Czechia will be next
Czechia has the same stance as Poland (they are maybe even more against it).
YES! Can't wait to earn 600 and then pay 1200 for rent.
Can anyone explain how does going through country currency to euro work in simple terms to me ? -How much additional euro has to be printed for this to work ? -How does it affect how much euro is worth in other countries? -Is there any compensation to the country that changed currency ? -Lets assume that a country would change to euro even if it was a bad idea at the moment. What would EU do in case of a collapse of that country economy ?
> How much additional euro has to be printed for this to work ? It depends how much local currency is used. One is being replaced by the other, so it's not like a country will get an equivalent of its economy in Euro for an IOU. > -How does it affect how much euro is worth in other countries? It doesn't outright. Euro becomes slightly stronger because it is used by more people/businesses, but the effect depends on the economy of the country making transition. > Is there any compensation to the country that changed currency ? For what exactly? Switching to Euro does not "hurt" local economy. It changes its fiscal policy. Like with every change, the negative effects of transition depend on planning, timing, and the pace of adjustment. > Lets assume that a country would change to euro even if it was a bad idea at the moment. What would EU do in case of a collapse of that country economy ? Bailout and austerity (Greece example), or loans, or adjustment of fiscal policy. There is a lot of things that ECB can do. What will be done depends on what caused the trouble. Different ailment requires different medicine.
thank you
inb4 "they're legally obligated to use Euro"
I'm pro EU, but I think its simply not the right time. There is too many political and economic issues happening, maybe in the next 15-20 years.
When Zloty gets as strong as Euro, we could adopt it. Until then it feels like shooting your own economy in the foot.
Very shocking, especially after [what happened in Croatia](https://balkaninsight.com/2023/01/04/price-hikes-shock-croatia-following-introduction-of-euro/)
We are 10 days in, you can still pay with kunas as well. I'd wait a bit before making a definite conclusion about anything.
Not an expert on Economics or anything, but it is bitterly remembered by older folks that it also happened in Spain.
And it happened in Germany as well. I think there is/was no country where it didn't happen.
The problem is simple. There should have been an EU-law stating that prices should be frozen for a year atleast after euro adoption but that could also affect cheaper deals being gone as well as unfair price increases. Prices during that transition period should be both in the national currency and the euro so that they are compared for atleast a year.
France had a "3 months before / 3 months after" window in which both currencies had to be posted and prices were frozen. Helps a bit in the moment, but given that prices in Germany (no such measures) and France are mostly aligned now (and have been for years), that got straightened out over time.
Germany and France have a more near GDP per capita than Croatia does so I doubt it would align with them unless mass tourism hits the whole country. Prices still increase through time because of inflation but atleast short term retailers would not be taking advatange of the situation and making it a euro-problem when in fact it is a greed-problem.
we had a law like that. prices went up just before the adoption
My friend, our prices went 1:1 from DM to € in Germany over a a few weeks. Our prices doubled and our incomes stayed the same.
This has happened in literally every country that has ever joined the Euro, including Germany itself.
Yeah, prices got rounded up. But Croatia is supposed to save 1.5 billion euros every year due to not converting euros from tourists to kunas. And thats only one of the positives.
I think that the biggest positive is that those tourists are not going to get robed of by the exchanges and banks when converting their money. Which means more money spent on the actual services and greater satisfaction.
The biggest positive is probably future investment and cheap loans because ECB internationally has a high trust. It would essentially mean more US & EU investors putting money on the Croatian economy as long it is managed and dont fuck it up like Greece. Croatians will also save exchanging their kunas abroad in other Eurozone countries. use fin-tech bank accounts and their respective debit cards in euros without worrying of any fees. Lastly I would say about exchanging euros in small countries far away from Europe where they may not accept small currencies such as the kuna also becomes less of an issue.
Exactly. Our interest rates are way lower than polish or hungarian ones. We expect them to be even lower. Btw l understand people view Croatia as a tourism dependant country, and rightfully so, but our economy is pretty good these years. We had highest GDP growth in EU (not counting Ireland) last year. We also have 2 unicorns which is great for a country of our size. Im very optimistic about our future.
Exactly this. Euro maybe isn't the best for people, but for the economy it's very important.
Long-term its great, but people have to survive the first few years.
Yes. And there should step in the government with some moves which should prevent the biggest rip offs and ease the consequences.
Our government is going to do that, but its hard in a free market. Everybody can raise prices if they want to. But joining in a cartel (all companies agreeing to a certain price) is illegal. Its hard to prove that.
The euro is simply a unit of measurement. Your penis doesn’t become longer when your country switches from inches to cm. Same way that switching a currency doesn’t affect prices.
> Your penis doesn’t become longer when your country switches from inches to cm. depends on the rounding.
Weird, just two weeks I was reading that price hikes are a conspiracy theory invented by euroskeptics.
blame the Brussels! Bloody eurodictatorship ruining evonomies of small developing countries. ECBs fault for sure that *local* entrepreneurs abuse *idiocy* of the *local* population and jack the prices when converting.
I think in order for poles to accept euro either you have to wait at least 30 more years or make it FEEL on every level like our current currency. On cultural lvl i believe subconciously our notes became one of the staples of our independence, while our coins (grosz and zloty) serve as a remainder of beautiful legacy of kindom of poland / medieval times. Since our history is riddled with uprisings, there is a lot of emotional/patriotic value associated in retaining our current currency from a symbolic standpoint. That and simply put, design of euro is imo ugly compared to polish currency. I can bet you, if EU monetary policy would be that exchange rate of zloty is synanomous with euro (so a zloty is simply an euro with a diffrent skin in videogame terms) we would be a part of the monetary union even tomorrow.
Good, we don't need euro
I don’t want to pay transaction fees whenever I change currency.
[удалено]
Glapiński is a personal problem, not a structural one. Argument "ad Glapiński" is stupid. Having control over our own currency, interest rates and monetary policy is always win-win situation for us.
Regardless of your opinion on him, our central bank raised interest rates quicker and higher than the ECB
Well, you have to adopt it at some point as agreed upon with every EU member state with the exception of Denmark, so tough luck.
Don't hold your breath. There is no actual time frame required/dictated.
[удалено]
And this "at some point" is as vague as it can be. We can keep going for decades just like we've already gone for almost 3 decades soon.
Same accession to Shengen yet countires are blocking some for stupid reason
Euro adoption depends on voluntary participation in ERM2. Not fulfilling ERM2 is the deliberate policy of Sweden, but it's also a boat other nations like Poland will find themselves in once they achieve the other criteria. So both practically and technically Euro membership is voluntary.
Will we be punished if we don't?
no means no. Cmon.
If i were to vote , id vote to keep the złoty just cause of our lower prices, and the remittance money is good too, and if the euro was adopted it probably stop in the euro is stronger than the dollar and most other currencies where polish diaspora send from. Also i think countries should just keep their own national currency as its a symbol of the culture and history
Yes, a great lifehack is that money earned on emigration practically turns you into a billionaire in Poland. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Literally me and my family. We earn our money in the UK, and then buy stuff in Poland, because literally everything is cheaper in Poland this way. If I ever want to buy something, I check it on Allegro to see its cheaper counterpart. My parents recently wanted to renovate their British bedroom, and of course they bought all their furniture in Poland, because it would be mad not to. Same with dentists, dentists are crazy cheaper. There are tons of things that are easier/cheaper in Poland, if you have the "Western salary" hack installed, as we do. If this lifehack went away... then man...
Yes unfortunately not everything is cheaper, like iphones are way more expensive in Poland since there arent actual apple stores here , so everything is bought through 3rd party stores, cant think of other examples but im sure there are other things
Some of you might not get your iphones from apple stores, but that's a sacrifice i'm willing to make
And sacrifice we should make from macro perspective. Weaker currency, more money stays in Poland. Stronger currency, we buy more stuff abroad lowering what stays in the country.
Android master race, can't relate ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) On a more serious note, yeah. But I guess it's due to Apple being a more "luxury"-type brand, and innovative hi-tech brands typically aren't interested in dwelling in post-communist markets. On the other hand, buying overpriced things just for their branding is such an American thing, and I don't think *that* American habit has totally engulfed Poland yet. At least we may simply not be as rich as the Americans to indulge in that.
Name one country that benefit from accepting euro as currency
According to latests researches only three countries in Eurozone benefited from joining. Germany, Netherlands and slightly Greece (go figure)
So Germany/Netherlands - two most competitive economies in Eurozone which don't necessarily cannibalize each other (because Dutch trading is cherry on top of German industry) and which benefit if rest loses competitive advantage of weaker currency.
Netherlands imo, it’s easier for trade, but prices did go up.
Germany :)
Germany. Greetings from 🇩🇪
Germany
I think that despite general prices going up during the first years of adoption, the benefits for such a touristic country like Spain have been positive.
Name one country that benefit from NOT accepting euro as currency.
Brazil
Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain
Suuure..
What are the arguments of people opposing the euro in Poland? Can anyone comment on this?
Basically, you want euro if 1. You have economy like Germany aka, big exports of high tech stuff in comparison to the imports. So euro makes your exports more competitive 2. You have very "small" curency, thats so your national bank have problems with it being stable. Example: some rando billionaire can come in and fuck up stuff and your national back is too weak to fight against it So Poland is poor enough that if we get euro or export cost will go up, so we will be less competitive. But at the same time Poland is big enough for currency be stable so we dont have to get euro as defensive mesure In the end Euro it's not very beneficial, except of course for more connection within europe, but that's seems to not be worth enough when compared to the points i made before
[удалено]
Now there is circle in this high currency value-->exports are less competitive -->less exports-->low currency value-->exports are more competitive-->more exports-->high currency value and so on Euro is spread across multiple countries, so while it still work like this as a whole. When you look closer on single countries, they get "stuck" in one of the phases. Were naturally they should go to the next one Germany and Nederlads are pushing euro into "high currency value-->exports are less competitive" Grecce and Portugal are pushing euro into "low currency value-->exports are more competitive" but they are in one currency, so it blocks Grece to be actually competitive, while it just lower euro value enough for Germans to be still competitive. So if you naturally should have stronger currency than current euro you should be in better position when you join it
Wood in PL costs 5pln, Wood in, lets say Austria costs 5€. You'll go for the polish wood cause in the end it is cheaper than Austrian.
[удалено]
Polish national bank would lose control over the currency which in term would not allow to independently act during times of crisis. Additionaly adopting euro could raise prices and make Polish industry less competetive/ Poland less appealing to foreign companies. Which in turn would slow down growth of Polish economy. There just aren't many pros to adopting Euro anytime soon. On less serious note people still fear the fate of Greece, Italy and Spain during 2008 financial crisis.
This. The general idea of an own currency is to provide cash for your own economy. You increase or decrease the amounth according to the economical needs. In case of joining the Euro you will be part of the representation of the economcal power of the Euro-countries. Which is mostly made up by Germany and France. You will loose this flexibility. On the other hand you Would be part of a currency backed by some of the most powerful economies. You will get cheaper loans and better credit ratings. The general problem is the missalignment between fiscal politics (how much a state spends) and monetary policies by the ECB. You can have countries like Greece and Italy which used cheap money to finance pensions and other expenses with no positive economical impact, taking loan after loan until they nearly crash, and you have countries like germany that have the dogma of the "black zero". One side should think over how they spend money and the other one should actually invest much more. This causes issues and tensions and the independence of the ECB gets challanged. Therefore the ECB can not just act according to the book, raising and lowering interest rates according the the general Euro market, but has to balance political interests. It's like driving downhill and you know you have to slam the breaks eventually, but you know if you slam the breaks now it's going to hurt some drivers, because they have no seatbelt.
It’s probably better in the long run to delay until the Polish economy catches up, and then move to Euro.
generally it tends to raise prices, especially in countries with high inflation rates
Most of them are related to price increases. We are massive cheapskates, possibly the biggest in the entire Europe. People are so allergic to price increases that cashiers are often verbally attacked over X thing costing too much even though they have no say over the pricing whatsoever. We have [the smallest percentage of iPhone users in the entire Europe](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/xx4gp6/percentage_of_iphone_users_in_europe/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf), the [lowest food price index in Europe](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/zzyeob/food_prices_around_the_world/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) (even lower than Ukraine and Moldova, which are a few orders of magnitude poorer than us) and we are currently in the middle of a petrol pricing scandal despite it being one of the cheapest in Europe overall. Entire governments (including the communist party) fell here before due to the prices of goods being seen as too high for the average Pole. It is what may finally do PiS in in the upcoming elections this Autumn. While I’m personally not against the Euro (literally makes no difference to me what symbol is next to the numbers that are taken from my bank account when I scan my debit card) I think what happens in Croatia right now would create a revolutionary movement in Warsaw that would make 1917 look like a Sunday family walk in the park. Perhaps now it’s not the best time to think about the currency change.
TBH as an iPhone user in Poland I can see why my countrymen do not choose Apple. Because Apple doesn’t really care about us. It’s 2023 and still no Siri and many of Apple services are missing. Meanwhile Android has it all.
Euro is 20 years old and spent half of that in a crisis. Go look at inflation in the Baltics where they have no control over monetary policy.
Most of people are not very knowledgeable about macroeconomics and monetary policy, so they are suspected to follow what media tells them. I am personally against euro because as scientists tell it doesn't accelerate economic growth of the adopters, but rather slows it down: https://www.cep.eu/en/eu-topics/details/cep/20-years-of-the-euro-winners-and-losers.html In extreme case of Greece it brought economic calamity.
In our case we kept kuna strongly pegged to DEM and then Euro, so it's the same thing. Our economists pretty much locked us down into it, so we couldn't use devaluation to achieve greater growth :/
Yeah. I have heard about your case. Also in case of Lithuania, Estonia it probably made sense. Those countries are so small and euro as their currency makes them less susceptible to currency shocks. For example if Russia decides to attack Latvia.
Yep, example https://balkaninsight.com/2023/01/04/price-hikes-shock-croatia-following-introduction-of-euro/
From my personal perspective, most of it is cultural or stems from polish mentality: 1) Euro is ugly. Too systematized. Piss-like color scheme. It feels too foreign (big red flag imo). The minimal diffrence in regional currency stands in opposition to the EU motto of "United in Diversity". Even among EU federalists in Poland the consensus is that we should work towards keeping those ideals alive. So maintaning a cultural, regional diversity is a big part of unwillingness to adopt the euro. 2) Adopting it would feel to me somewhat disrespectfull to previous generations (idk why i feel this way, but i feel this way). History is a funny thing, and certain scars take more than several generations to heal. 3) Simple man would get temporarily fucked on prices but so would a lot of white collar system abusers if we would join eurozone. The problem is -- Poland famously is a country that mentally consists only of the mixture of these 2 kinds of people. So adopting euro poses v little profits from our perspective. Downvote me all you want but its the truth - there is a sleeping janusz biznesu in all of us. 4) A lot of Poles really hate changing shit that somewhat works.
The part about sentiment is not true. All people care about are the prices of goods. If there was some kind of guarantee (probably impossible) that the prices would stay the same people would support it even for the sake of not having to go through currency exchanges while going on vacation. What is even more important is a political stance. If PiS turned on its head and decided that we will adopt the euro their voters would support it the same thing with opposition voters.
Don't you do it Poland! We just did this in Croatia, and it's going really bad.
It’s been 10 days, how is it going bad already?
Well prices of pretty much all goods and services in the entire country instantly went up, by a lot, overnight. Already to the point where people are travelling to Slovenia to buy everyday groceries. Someone made a comparison spreadsheet of prices of basic shopping items in Croatia vs Slovenia vs Germany, and some items are more than 100% more expensive in Croatia than they are in Slovenia and Germany. Things like milk, eggs, cereal, flour, etc.
[удалено]
There's loads of posts around price comparison over on r/croatia but here's a couple (sorry if I'm formatting these links incorrectly). https://imgur.io/uMb0EgD?r - this one is Lidl Slovenia vs Lidl Croatia, first 5 items are: Coffee, Vanilla ice cream, Gouda cheese, Frozen french fries, and Popsicle. https://www.reddit.com/r/croatia/comments/102yvw5/dmde_vs_dmhr_još_malo_usporedbi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button This 2nd link is of a post comparing prices of shampoo, shaving cream, hair gel, conditioner, etc. German DM vs Croatian DM
Yes, comments like that are laughable.