Angry miners continue to block roads in Bulgaria over plans to abandon coal

Bulgarian miners who are blocking highways and key roads in southern Bulgaria in a protest against the government – which officially submitted their territorial Just Transition Plans to the EU Commission on Friday – continued for the third day, with unions refusing to appear at the Council of Ministers for negotiations with Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov on Sunday.

Bulgaria expects €1.8 billion from the EU to make the green transition in its coal regions without losing jobs. On Friday, MPs from the parliamentary majority promised that coal-fired power plants in Bulgaria would be phased out by 2038.

Nevertheless, the protests continue, and Denkov suspects political interference ahead of the local elections, which will be held at the end of October.

“Parties should not abuse the fears of energy workers and miners in their campaign for local elections,” said Denkov.

On Sunday, he brought this matter up with political leaders, commenting that some of the protesters’ demands have already been resolved in the territorial plans, and politicians have misled the miners. That same day, the unions refused to appear at the Council of Ministers for negotiations.

Every fired miner or coal-fired power station worker was promised 36 wages as compensation, equal to €75,000. This amount equals 75 average wages in the EU’s poorest country. Those coal workers who do not want to leave will be employed by a state-owned company carrying out the Green Transition in these areas.

A week ago, in the capital, Sofia, there was another protest by coal workers, but they were stopped after the government’s promise of guaranteed jobs. At the end of last week, protests began again, as they opposed the authorities’ intention to phase out coal power step by step until 2038.

The protestors demand coal-fired power plants operate at full capacity until 2038 when they will be shut down entirely. This is a proposal that the government can hardly fulfil because these power plants are already losing tens of millions of euros due to greenhouse emissions.

“We insist on an extraordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers with one topic on the agenda – the withdrawal of the submitted territorial plans for a just transition. The deadline for submission to the EC has been met, but now we want them to be corrected, and our demands will be met”, some of the trade unions in the coal region around Stara Zagora insisted.

“These people are aware of what will happen. The question is how it will happen. The whole conversation and tension is around this,” commented Podkrepa Trade Union President Dimitar Manolov.

“If we lose this money for the development of the coal regions, it will be a crime for the workers and their children,” said Denkov.

(Krassen Nikolov | Euractiv.bg)

Read more with Euractiv

Sánchez waits on PM news – or else Spain will face another election