The National Assembly failed yesterday to adopt the updated road map for climate neutrality and the changes to the National Recovery and Sustainability Plan (NRSP) in Component 4 "Low Carbon Economy" and negotiation under the REPowerEU chapter.
The document is a condition for receiving European funding under the Recovery and Resilience Plan. The map contains the stages by which we need to close the coal-fired reactors.
When the consideration of the updated Climate Neutrality Roadmap submitted by the government was to begin, Vazrazhdane and ITN surrounded the rostrum and refused to allow the meeting to continue. After prolonged chaos, Parliament was adjourned late last night.
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"This was the last opportunity to save more than BGN 2 billion under the recovery plan. Unfortunately, we irretrievably lost many billions of funds from the European funds, because the deadline was September 30, and there cannot be a session of the parliament until September 30, because the election campaign starts on September 27," said Delyan Dobrev from the PG of GERB - SDS.
"Interest in the failure is the pro-Russian party "Vazrazhdane", which, among other things, is Eurosceptic, which wants to revise our membership in the EU and NATO, and this is one of the tools - to tell how the EU wants to close our energy and how not gives no funds to the miners and others employed in this sphere, this is our political reading. The other culprit for making the process of absorbing the money so complicated is "We continue the change-Democratic Bulgaria" and in particular Asen Vassilev, who set the conditions in the recovery plan," commented Yordan Tsonev from the PG of the DPS.
Only Bulgaria has not officially presented a RePowerEU chapter
Bulgaria has so far absorbed only EUR 1.37 billion of the funds. The first payment of 1.368 billion euros was received in December 2022. Our country never decided to use loans under favorable conditions to finance the implementation of its commitments to greening the economy and rapid growth. The politicians in our country, and obviously the society, believe that one should rely only on subsidies from the EU, instead of the state and entrepreneurs investing their own funds.
Last week, at a hearing in the National Assembly, Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Lyudmila Petkova warned of the danger. During the meeting, she commented on the RePowerEU chapter of the NPVU. Petkova pointed out that within the framework of the negotiations with the EC, changes are proposed to the plan, affecting 32 investments and 14 reforms.
"The possibilities for changes to three decisions of the National Assembly should also be discussed. The first is from January 12, 2023 for changes in the NPVU in the energy sector. With this decision, the government was obliged to renegotiate the decarbonisation of the energy sector and the separation of ownership of Bulgartransgaz, the Electricity System Operator, from the Bulgarian Energy Holding. The second decision is from July 20, 2023, when the parliament decided to limit transactions for the assets of "Mini Maritsa Iztok" EAD without the permission of the National Assembly. The third decision in question is from April 25 this year and is related to the provision of funds for "Mini Maritsa Iztok" EAD for four years - from 2024 to 2028, to provide money for the technical reclamation of land in the area. " became clear from the words of the finance minister.
Bulgaria is the only EU member state that has not officially submitted a RePowerEU chapter, and in order to benefit from the free resource in the amount of 479 million euros, the amendment to the National Plan must be approved by the EC, Petkova also pointed out, quoted by BTA.