The energy minister will seek all opportunities to save funds from the Recovery Plan Energy

The goal is to save as much money as possible from the National Recovery and Sustainability Plan (NRSP), Energy Minister Zhecho Stankov told Nova TV.

BTA recalls that Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Innovation and Growth Tomislav Donchev announced on March 6 that at the beginning of next week it will be announced which of the projects under the NRSP are being dropped, and assured that "no matter how many days of service this government has ahead of it, it will do everything necessary to reduce the damage from the potential loss of funds".

"My maximum program is to have no lost funds in the "Energy" part. The task set to me by the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister is to fight for every penny that is directed at Bulgarian citizens," said Stankov. "We will save these projects for which procedures have been launched and beneficiaries have been selected," he assured.

"It is important not to lose money under the National Energy Policy. At the moment, our money is blocked because during the first government of "Continuing the Change" such commitments were made that, firstly, want to close the Bulgarian energy sector, even lead to a power outage at certain times, secondly, they dig deep into the pockets of Bulgarian households and thirdly, they can lead to the bankruptcy of the Bulgarian energy sector through an early demand of over 2 billion leva from it," the minister pointed out.

Stankov announced that the first payments for compensation are already being made to people who were left without electricity as a result of the complicated weather conditions and heavy rainfall on the second day of Christmas last year. Residents of some settlements were without electricity for days.

"We had made a commitment to those people who were left in the dark during the New Year holidays to receive compensation in the form of financial assistance from the state. These compensations are already being paid," Stankov said.

According to the energy minister, the total amount for compensation is 2.2 million leva for nearly 26,000 households.

He also assured that household bills will not increase even after the full liberalization of the energy market

According to him, the ruling coalition is stable. According to him, there are no tremors, but adjustments between the individual political forces in the government.

"What was put first by our leader when the coalition was formed was to return the country to normality," the minister said. According to him, for this to happen, first of all, there must be a balanced state budget, which is aimed at the people, with pensions being raised by over 8 percent, with wages in the budget sector rising by over 5 percent, with the continuation of the rehabilitation program.