Brussels Demands Coal Phase-out Date from Bulgaria

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How will Bulgaria phase out its coal-fired power plants, and what’s the exact deadline for doing that? Those are the questions the European Commission would like an exact answer to from Sofia. Following that, Brussels can start deliberations on the country’s Recovery Plan and Partnership Agreement.

It presents a huge dilemma for Bulgaria, which has ample coal in fact, 100,000 people work in industries related to it. Meanwhile the country’s electricity network is 40% reliant on the resource, too.

Bulgaria has 1800 megawatts of coal capacity which it has already promised to shut down by 2030. But while three significant coal-fired plants are scheduled for phase-out by 2035, the country has not submitted an exact date for when those facilities will be taken offline.

With Sofia being presently run by a caretaker government, the difficulty of taking decisions like the on regarding coal phase-out has been exacerbated by political chaos from the country having to hold three parliamentary elections this year – one of which is forthcoming.

Source: Euractiv