Who Has Beheaded Bulgarian Energy Industry?

This question has been raised today by Boyko Borissov and was addressed to GERB deputies during a briefing at the party headquarters.

Eco news gave an answer to this questions a year ago – it’s the person responsible for shutting the thermal power plants in the Marishki pool and a former Minister of the Environment and Deputy Prime Minister of climate Borislav Sandov.

Already at the beginning of January, just days after the formation of the Petkov Cabinet, Minister Borislav Sandov demanded the closure of the coal plants.

He launched a massive media attack on the TPP, saying that by 2025, for economic reasons, they would stop generating electricity themselves, due to carbon quotas. In a series of interviews with Bulgarian media at the time, Sandov stated that "the closure of the coal-fired power plants in the Mariska Basin is overdue."

As Eco News has repeatedly warned, until the very end of the mandate of the Petkov cabinet, which was prematurely terminated, Sandov worked actively for the liquidation of all thermal power plants in Bulgaria, including Bobov dol, Ruse, Varna and a number of others.

"In the short term, some of the commitments seem very difficult to meet in view of all the economic uncertainty, the high prices at the moment. We should also talk about whether all the commitments that seemed meaningful before continue to be so," commented the Deputy Prime Minister for European funds management Atanas Pekanov to BNT back in September.

It became clear from Pekanov's words even then that the regular cabinet, without making it public, had made a serious commitment to the European Commission to liquidate this industry, which is important for national security and employs over 50,000 people. In addition, the closure of the TPP will also lead to the destruction of the entire mining industry.

All this is happening because Borislav Sandov pushed the interests of the energy lobby related to the Green Deal and the construction of renewable energy sources (RES). Large-scale projects under the Recovery Plan, such as the huge, and unknown to the world, electricity storage battery would be financed with 1.5 billion euros.

This money would enter an extremely narrow circle of companies that have been market leaders in the construction and operation of RES for years.

It was this round that forced the green NGO activist Sandov to become Minister of Environment and Water.

And he duly repaid.

In recent days, as a result of the scandal surrounding the coal plants, all political parties have denied that they demanded their closure.

However, another impression is made - there is not a word from Borislav Sandov.

The usually talkative Sandov, who is a frequent guest on national television, humbled himself.

It is strange that he, who is the main culprit, is not mentioned, neither by the politicians nor by the media.

There are no comments on the subject from the always active ecologists from the "Green Movement", the party that is part of "Democratic Bulgaria", as well as from the green activists from their close circles.

In the end, it will turn out that quietly, without taking responsibility, Borislav Sandov will be the main culprit for the negative consequences on business and the shock increase in household electricity prices, which will result from the decision to reduce the carbon emissions of the TPP to 40% of those in 2019, which is one of the years in which they were the lowest.