EC: Bulgaria to focus on the implementation of the Plan, changes are possible in exceptional cases

Renegotiation of a Recovery and Sustainability Plan that has been approved and is being implemented can only be had in exceptional cases. This is what the European Commission for BNT said today. The EC also says that considering that the Bulgarian plan was only approved in May 2022, and most of the other countries' plans were approved as early as 2021, the focus should be on the implementation of the current plan.

The country requesting such a renegotiation must prove that it can no longer carry out all or part of its plan due to objective circumstances.

In such a case, the European Commission is ready to discuss the implementation of individual milestones or targets with the Member States, which are no longer achievable due to objective circumstances and must be revised. But this will also require a strict assessment of each case individually, made by the European Commission together with the respective country.

In case of any changes, the revised recovery plan must again meet the original criteria of allocating 37% to climate costs and the need for the plan to address a significant set of country-specific recommendations - in the case of Bulgaria, the specific recommendations are related to progressive decarbonisation of the Bulgarian economy.

According to Brussels, the major investments and transformative sectoral reforms in the energy sector in the current Bulgarian plan are fully compatible with REPowerEU's goals of gradually eliminating the EU's dependence on Russian fossil fuels. The Bulgarian plan includes reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector by 40% by 2025.

These reforms go hand in hand with important investments in renewables and energy storage. According to the plan, financial support for the greening of the energy sector amounts to more than 2 billion euros.

The European Commission recalls that Bulgaria is the EU's economy with the highest carbon intensity and the clear commitments to implement the country-specific recommendations regarding decarbonisation were a decisive element for the approval of the Recovery and Sustainability Plan. The recovery plan and other EU instruments contribute more than 5 billion euros of financial support to the decarbonisation of the Bulgarian energy system, leading to a fair and honest transition and ensuring that no citizen is left behind, the Commission also claims.