site.btaDeputy PM Pekanov: We Will Seek to Renegotiate and Lighten Commitments under Recovery and Resilience Plan

Deputy Prime Minister for EU Funds Management Atanas Pekanov told reporters in Pernik on Friday: "We will have to seek to renegotiate and lighten the Recovery and Resilience Plan commitments for 2023 and for next year." Europe has been discussing how to respond to the changed geopolitical situation with a new facility, he said.

First of all, a regulation should be adopted framing the way negotiations are conducted, Pekanov said. The most demanding commitments envisage reducing the emissions from coal-fired power plants every year.

"In the long term, I believe that Europe sticks to the Green Deal and that targets need to be met. In the short term, however, this will be very difficult to do in the next two years because, on the one hand, this is unrealistic to happen so quickly and, on the other, Bulgaria's coal-fired power plants are profitable and there is no way they can be closed at this point," Pekanov stressed.

He attended a formal event for the launch of the town's integrated urban transport. The project received financial support from Operational Programme Regions in Growth 2014-2020, co-financed by the EU through the European Regional Development Fund. The project is worth BGN 10,216,495, including BGN 6,552,227 in grant aid.