It’s hard to ignore Bulgaria’s heart-on-sleeve embrace of the European Union. The bloc’s blue flag with gold stars flies at institutions more prominently than in other countries in Eastern Europe. Pro-euro billboards paid for by the government dot Sofia’s streets and metro stations.

What’s also conspicuous is the predicament that Bulgaria finds itself in as it adopts Europe’s single currency today. The government just resigned, it has no up-to-date budget, and almost half the population wants to keep the lev.

The switch is meant to crown almost two decades of integration after Bulgaria joined the EU and then finally its Schengen customs-free travel zone. The European Central Bank’s main building in Frankfurt has been illuminated to mark Thursday’s transition, the latest accession since Croatia joined in 2023 and taking the number of countries with the currency to 21.

But popular anger over corruption, cronyism and a persistent failure to get a viable government has cast a pall over progress. Bulgaria looks as much like a cautionary tale as a success story.

Protests in November against the government’s proposed tax and spending plans turned into the biggest display of unrest in more than a decade. By mid-December, the prime minister had quit, and party leaders said an eighth election in five years was now the most likely outcome.

The EU has repeatedly criticized Bulgaria’s failure to improve rule of law and its low efficiency in probing high-ranking officials for corruption. But, unlike in Hungary, Poland or Slovakia, pro-EU parties have dominated the political scene in Bulgaria, affording them some protection.

“Those parties have consistently leveraged their standing within their European political families as a form of external validation and whitewashing,” said Goran Georgiev, senior analyst at the Center for the Study of Democracy, an independent think tank in Sofia.

In Transparency International’s latest annual corruption perceptions index, Bulgaria only ranks above Hungary among EU members. The EU has delayed some of Bulgaria’s recovery funding on the grounds that the country hasn’t fulfilled reforms related to its anti-corruption commission an increased scrutiny of the chief prosecutor.

Over the past decade, dozens of high-ranking businessmen and public officials have been probed by various authorities. They include former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov and Delyan Peevski, an oligarch protesters say is Bulgaria’s eminence grise and who had become the lightning rod for their wrath. Both deny any wrongdoing, and neither has been charged.

Protesting against the government in Sofia last month, Elena Ivanova, a stay-at-home mother of two boys, said she just wants fairness.

She also lamented the number of people that used their freedom of movement as EU citizens to abandon the country. Since it joined the EU in 2007, Bulgaria has suffered one of the biggest drops in population in the world, losing about 16% of its people as more than 1 million departed.

“I want a country that obeys by the rules, and where people who follow the rules will get what they earn,” said Ivanova, 32. “Many of my friends left Bulgaria. I want my sons to remain.”

Ivan Peev, 34, joined the protests in Sofia together with his family since a pivotal demonstration against the budget plan on Nov. 26. He accuses the political elite of theft.

“This time it was just too much,” he said. “This budget showed we just get robbed. Every cent you give to this government is going to be stolen. It has never been so visible.”

The European Commission said the recent political developments haven’t interfered with Bulgaria’s adoption of the euro, while Georgiev said it would be geopolitical and economic suicide for any future government to try to reverse it.

But Bulgaria is also emblematic of the issues facing other parts of the Balkans seeking European integration.

Protests against Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and his government are into their second year following a tragedy at a railway station that became the tipping point for public anger against perceived corruption. The demonstrators, though, show little love for Serbia’s drive to join the EU. Albania, where support for the EU is strong, is meanwhile mired in a scandal over public contracts.

Polls show Bulgaria is split on whether the euro is a good thing, mainly because of concern about inflation after a crisis wrecked people’s finances in the 1990s. Rumen Radev, the Russia-friendly president, pushed for a referendum on adoption, as did the pro-Moscow nationalist party Revival.

The government said on Dec. 29 that sanctions would be imposed on retailers, local traders and neighborhood food outlets found to have implemented “unjustified price increases.”

Bulgaria’s economic credentials are strong. Gross domestic product quadruped to about $110 billion since joining the EU and its debt-to-GDP ratio is at less than 30%, among the lowest in the bloc.

Wages, meanwhile, are growing faster than anywhere else in the 27-member bloc. Peev, for example, works in technical support and said his salary almost doubled since the Covid pandemic.

But the nation has been catching up slowly. Per-capita GDP has remained the EU’s lowest, at about 66% of the average compared with 77% in neighboring Romania, which joined at the same time. Moreover, Bulgaria has by far the bloc’s highest income inequality, largely unchanged since 2007. The average wage in the capital Sofia is twice as high as in the northeast, the EU’s poorest region.

“Many pro-Western Bulgarians are disappointed in the fact that the EU, which they expect to be a force for good, is seemingly being relegated to the role of justifying systemic corruption,” said Georgiev, the analyst.

Bulgarians have had their fair share of anti-corruption protests. In 2013, tens of thousands of people flooded the streets to oppose the appointment of Peevski, then a young media mogul, as head of the National Security Agency. Peevski gave up the appointment the next day, but demonstrations lasted for more than a year.

A new wave of ire in 2020 against the then Prime Minister Borissov and a powerful chief prosecutor, Ivan Geshev, put an end to years-long dominance for Borissov’s Gerb party. That triggered the political turmoil that has failed to produce a stable government ever since.

Peevski’s informal support for the latest administration helped keep it in power until it was engulfed by protests. Now the risk is more political sclerosis and social unrest.

About 40% of Bulgarians want a government formed around a brand new party, according to an Alpha Research poll conducted Dec. 5-12. President Radev could be the person to potentially launch one, though he hasn’t yet shown his cards. But while he’s the country’s most popular politician, he might only attract about half of those people, according to Alpha Research.

Irina Staneva, a psychology student who attended the protests together with her friends, said now is the time to reclaim Bulgaria’s future as it joins the euro and prepares for yet another election.

“It’s the feeling that someone has taken away something that partly belongs to me and my friends,” said Staneva, 23. “We want it back.”

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With assistance from Maxim Edwards.

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