Bulgaria risks losing billions in EU funds over coal miner spat

Bulgaria risks losing €4.4 billion in EU funding under its Energy Recovery and Sustainability Plan as its parliament delays key legislative decisions due to a backlash from coal miners, which is likely to result in the European Commission withholding money from Bulgaria’s Recovery and Resilience Fund.

Bulgaria is facing another political crisis following the collapse of Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov’s pro-EU government. The EU’s poorest country is set to hold both European and early parliamentary elections on 9 June.

Under pressure from protesting miners and coal-fired power plant workers, Bulgaria’s parliament on Thursday postponed the discussion and vote on the updated Climate Neutrality Roadmap.

This roadmap is a key part of the country’s Recovery and Sustainability Plan, and its adoption would give Bulgaria the green light to receive billions of euros from Brussels to transform the country’s energy sector and meet its Green Deal commitments.

Parliament is expected to be dissolved next week and will not function until mid-June at the earliest, which could make the delay an insurmountable obstacle to implementing the energy project.

Adoption of the roadmap is one condition for receiving the second payment under the recovery plan, as this document sets out the reforms and commitments to be implemented regarding the replacement of coal-fired power with renewable energy sources.

“Already at the end of last year, all the actions that depended on the Council of Ministers were done and the bills were submitted to the National Assembly,” said former prime minister Denkov.

He accused the country’s largest party, the conservative GERB (EPP), of blocking the legislative process leading to EU funding.

On Thursday, the parliamentary majority voted in favour of a €500 million subsidy for the state-owned Maritsa Iztok coal mine.

The subsidy was proposed by GERB, which looks set to win the forthcoming elections with support approaching 30%, and supported by the Turkish minority party DPS (Renew Europe), its main parliamentary partner, and the pro-Russian radical party Vazhrazhdane (ECR).

The subsidy is granted on the formal grounds that state-owned mines need money to start reclaiming their land, while experts doubt that the money is subsidising miners’ wages.

The parliamentary debate came as coal miners staged a nationwide protest outside parliament and government buildings. The miners fear that they could lose their jobs following the full liberalisation of Bulgaria’s energy market, which was due to take place this year but has been delayed by one to three years.

The miners’ unions have submitted a declaration to the National Assembly calling for subsidies for constructing a carbon capture plant at Maritsa-Iztok 2, the largest state-owned coal-fired power station.

“This will make the plant competitive on the electricity market and prevent its closure,” said Stanimir Georgiev, chairman of the Association of Miners and Energy Workers Together, as quoted by the state-run Bulgarian National Radio.

(Krassen Nikolov | Euractiv.bg)

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