“Unfavorable reforms”: Bulgaria to renegotiate targets for coal plants

The Bulgarian Ministry of Energy has conducted a detailed analysis of the country’s Recovery and Resilience Plan and, "the situation is not just very worrying, but to put it mildly, critical, even dramatic," in the words of the man leading this department – Zhecho Stankov. This same "dramatic" situation will be used as an argument to renegotiate reforms in the RRP.

According to Stankov, the form in which the Plan was submitted by the government of Kiril Petkov (PP-DB), which also included BSP and ITN (coalition partners of the current government), was unfeasible because of the reforms set out in it. At the time of submission, the Minister of Energy was Alexander Nikolov from ITN.

Zhecho Stankov went further, saying that these reforms threaten Bulgarian energy security and are contrary to the national interest.

Unfavorable reforms will lead to deep digging into the pockets of Bulgarian citizens if they are not carefully reformatted and renegotiated."

GERB, however, was also a coalition partner of PP-DB during the Denkov-Gabriel government, which followed the Petkov government.

It is now clear that Bulgaria will renegotiate with the EC the separation of the Electricity System Operator (ESO) and Bulgartransgaz from the Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH), which is a key reform, upon whose contingency depends the second RRP payment.

According to Stankov, if the change that the European Commission has been insisting on for years does happen, it will lead to an early call on bond loans worth 1.2 billion euros, and investors will reduce their confidence in Bulgaria's energy sector.

Secondly, the Energy Minister pointed to the "extraordinary commitment made by the Petkov government to a 40% reduction in emissions from coal-fired power plants." In his words, no such commitment is made in any regulation or directive, so it was "artificially made for each power plant."

That means that even if one power plant closes, the others continue to be bound to the same commitment to reducing emissions by 40%."

The third reform that Stankov wants to renegotiate is the adoption of a Roadmap for Climate Neutrality – another barrier that has stood in the way of the second RRP payment for Bulgaria.

Basically, it does not vow any additional commitments to Brussels but only creates political tension and misunderstanding in our society, as well as a lack of public support," in the minister’s opinion.

The deadline for the implementation of all projects and reforms under the Recovery Plan is August 2026. That is, there is very little time left for renegotiation and implementation.

Translated by Tzvetozar Vincent Iolov