Podcast | The green transition is happenning very fast, so we better take advantage of it

"My daddy is a miner,

I will be a miner too..”

These were the first verses of a children’s poem that Bulgarian kids learned at school during the Communist regime from 1944 to 1989. The times for this type of thinking, however, have long since ended, according to Slavtcho Neykov, the chairman of the Energy Management Institute (EMI). He shared a story of attending a business forum five years ago in the city of Stara Zagora. The event was full of youth in their last year of high school, who, when asked if they wanted to become miners, all said “no”. They all wanted to work with new technologies, with a new type of economy.

The expert is adamant that the Green Deal of the European Union is not just about energy, much less just about coal, and is about a completely new vision for what the economy should be.

The green transition is happening very fast, and we better do everything that is presented to us as an opportunity."

Neykov adds: "No one says that we are writing off coal, the point is to objectively read the trend that coal is becoming uncompetitive and is going away," and the market is stronger than wishful thinking.

And rather than resisting, we must strive to make the most of the opportunities presented to us because the green transition is moving forward."

When it comes to the green transition in Bulgaria, however, there are still many unresolved issues and problems, such as serious social effects and demographic dimensions. Bulgaria does not even have an active energy strategy, and so the actions taken by the successive governments express uncertainty and largely repel investors, adds Neykov. 

"The trends and the issues in all of this were relevant to the events organized by the "Transition Opportunities" project. 

Such projects, especially when they are well implemented with a very intensive program, serve as a catalyst to action, even if reluctant action, as well as a reminder to the state institutions.

Neykov explained that the Transition of Coal Regions and the Green Transition, as objectives, are well secured by the European Commission with decent funding.

However, there is a marked divergence between the visions of the local and central authorities about this.

“What I heard, and saw, is that there is a discrepancy between the realities and the behavior of the state institutions, especially at the central level," explained Slavtcho Neykov, adding that the visions of the local and central administrations in Bulgaria also have their own gaps. 

We are in a situation where there is money, but we are not using it. There is European money that we have already lost precisely because of this divergence in visions. There are many opportunities, but we need to use them at the right time, because if not there is a danger of suffering extremely serious and difficult-to-reverse consequences".

What should Bulgarian energy without coal look like? How do we make the transition fair? Why Bulgaria actually doesn't need any space energy projects? These are some of the questions we discussed with Slavtcho Neykov in the next episode of the "Transition Opportunities" podcast, part of the project of the same name, financed by the European Commission.

"Transition Opportunities" event on September 25

The final event of the "Transition Opportunities" project - the international forum "Just Transition Opportunities Across Borders", which will be held on September 25 in Sofia - will focus on these problems while searching to propose solutions.

Slavtcho Neykov, Chairman of the Board of the Energy Management Institute, who will take on the role of the event’s moderator, hopes that the voice of the business sector, non-governmental organizations and all interested parties will be heard there. The relevant public institutions need to hear that regulatory changes must happen so that the objectives of the green transition can become a reality.

He says that being pragmatic is also important. This involves not only what has happened so far (both good and bad), but also how the difficulties were overcome, how the affected people communicated their expectations to the institutions and how said institutions reacted.

Both good and bad practices will be discussed during the debates. An example of bad practice was looking at what the energy communities in Greece were doing so we could “transfer” the know-how here. It turned out that these communities were actually "buried" in many particular problems.

Despite the ongoing political instability our country needs to make very important decisions in a short period of time,” commented Neykov.

He expects serious attention to be paid to the social issue, which according to him has two dimensions - employment and energy poverty. The latter gets a bit overplayed but is nevertheless a particularly sensitive topic in Bulgaria.

The project has the opportunity to pose serious and fundamental questions about having a national concept for the development not only of the energy sector but, in many ways, of the economy.

Translated by Tzvetozar Vincent Iolov

Co-Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Managing Authority. Neither the European Union nor the Managing Authority can be held responsible for them.