Bulgaria's Lesson for Euro-Skeptics

The Bulgarian government has announced that it is suspending its plans to adopt the euro, which had been scheduled for sometime after 2015. "The momentum has shifted in our thinking and among the public," Finance Minister Simeon Djankov told the Journal. "Right now, I don't see any benefits of entering the euro zone, only costs."

This, supposedly, amounts to the latest proof of the single currency's necessary and certain doom. The popular British website HousePriceCrash.co.uk heralded the spectacle of Europe's poorest country telling the currency club to "get stuffed." Russia Today, the Kremlin's English-language mouthpiece, called up a "financial expert" who characterized Bulgaria's stance as "we don't want your euro because your grand design is deeply flawed, it's built on sand, it's a catastrophe."

Except that's not what Bulgaria said. As Mr. Djankov told the Journal, "the public rightly wants to know who would we have to bail out when we join? It's too risky for us and it's also not certain what the rules are and what are they likely to be in one year or two."

It's difficult to argue with those concerns. But they hardly condemn the notion that disparate economies can share a single currency. Sofia's position reflects recent developments in Europe, which have seen euro leaders use Mediterranean spending crises as a reason to shred the single currency's founding agreements, most notably its no-bailout provision, and shuffle toward a fiscal union to go with the monetary union.

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