Bulgaria is now in the final stages of joining the eurozone, the currency union of 20 EU member states. The country's ruling coalition said adopting the euro is a top priority that, ideally, will become a reality at the beginning of 2026.

Meanwhile, pro-Russian parties and popular pro-Kremlin actors have been actively — and in some cases aggressively — campaigning against the move.

At the end of February, supporters and members of the pro-Russian party Vazrazhdane (in English: "Revival") vandalized the European Commission's building in Bulgaria's capital, Sofia.

With the possibility of Bulgaria entering the eurozone getting closer and closer, disinformation narratives have become more prolific.

DW Fact check and DW Bulgarian looked at some of the viral claims.

Claim: Rada Laykova, a European Parliament member from Vazrazhdane, said in a video shared on TikTok that "there will be a deadline by which you need to have spent your money," after which the European Commission will steal it from people.

DW Fact check: False

The long version of the interview, from the YouTube channel of prominent pro-Russian commentator Martin Karbovski has nearly 80.000 views, and another short version has 1.8 million views on his Facebook page.Laykova's claims have also been shared multiple times beyond Karbovski's official channels.

In the interview, Laykova suggested (21:42-23:16) that people's savings and pension funds could be used for military projects.

She added that "it's actively being discussed" that the EU will, in a way, confiscate people's savings, pension funds and salaries if they don't spend them in a limited amount of time.

But people's savings are protected in the EU. The EU does not have the power to simply seize private savings arbitrarily.

It operates under a legal framework that protects individual property rights, for example, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (article 17), the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (article 345), and the article 1 of protocol No.11 to the European Court of Human Rights.

Moreover, as European Commission spokesperson Olof Gill recently told DW, "EU citizens enjoy and will continue enjoying full freedom to........

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