The transition to building a green economy is a huge opportunity to deeply modernise our society, but it is crucial to ensure the sustainability of this process. This is what President Rumen Radev said at the opening of the international forum "The Green Deal - Innovation, Investment and a Just Transition". This large-scale event brought together representatives of the institutions, leading European and Bulgarian experts, business people and non-governmental sector representatives. The Green Deal and its importance for Bulgarian society and economy were the focus of the discussions during the forum.
Addressing the participants in the forum, Radev pointed out that in the conditions of acute geopolitical confrontation, unprecedented energy, economic and social crisis and galloping inflation, the debate on the Green Deal went beyond the dimensions of talks on green transition, clean environment, circular economy, biodiversity conservation, attracting investments and innovations in this field.
The transition to building a green economy is a huge opportunity for a profound modernisation of our society, but it is crucial to ensure the sustainability of this process, the President stressed. He mentioned the main risks to the green transition. First and foremost, he highlighted the risk of overspeeding in the quest to quickly achieve clean energy. In his words, the abandonment of basic energy capacities - coal, nuclear energy and gas - should not take place without clear, technologically sound and financially rational solutions to the biggest problem - energy storage. If we switch to 100% renewable energy without having solved the problem of its storage, this is the surest path to disaster for this beautiful and necessary idea, Radev said. In his words, whoever manages to achieve a financially rational and technologically feasible solution to energy storage holds the key to the future.
According to the head of State, some of the legislative initiatives in the "Fit for 55" package, which aim to bring member states closer to the EU's target of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions, are too ambitious for this country. The supply chain must not be allowed to be further hampered and transport services made excessively expensive, because not only would the European economy lose its competitiveness, but this would lead to an unbearable increase in the cost of all the goods and services we consume.
The basis of any economy is the availability of reliable, accessible and cheap energy, and the guarantee for all future successes is innovation, President Radev said. He expressed hope that the ambitious Horizon Europe package of nearly EUR 100 billion in investment in science, technology, innovation and education would give a decisive boost in this direction. Investing in R&D training should be a strategic national priority.
The social risk should not be overlooked, the head of State said. If we impose the same approach on all member states without taking into account the national specificities of their energy systems and economies, we risk making the poor even poorer, President Radev said. Equally important is the risk of losing the trust of European citizens in the green transition.
The road Bulgaria has to travel in the field of energy mix and overall social and economic transformation is long and difficult. However, in the face of an unprecedented energy crisis, Bulgaria's energy system has proven to be one of the most autonomous and sustainable because 50% of the energy mix is from coal-fired power plants. This is autonomy because the resources, the plants, the technology and the people are all Bulgarian, the Head of State emphasised. We must do everything possible to preserve the autonomy of our energy system. We should take maximum advantage of our natural resources and the developed technologies in the field of nuclear energy and the huge capacity of our scientific developments, President Radev said.
The head of State called for the elaboration of a national energy strategy that would unite all the country's efforts and instruments and set clear timeframes for the implementation of a fair and socially tolerable green transition.
President Radev also touched on the issue of whether Bulgaria will switch to energy storage in the form of green hydrogen. Green hydrogen is an important key to a climate-neutral economy and Bulgaria has all the prerequisites to become a leading supplier of green hydrogen in Europe, the head of State stressed. According to the President, through hydrogen Bulgaria will diversify its exports and thus maintain its role as an energy supplier, and by introducing accompanying activities based on hydrogen technologies, Bulgaria can meet a number of key objectives for the development of a new type of economy: use of supply chains of existing sectors, increase in local production and development of new industrial sectors with high added value.
There are many opportunities, financial resources are limited. With all the challenges facing the transition to green energy, we need to be honest and accountable to our citizens and businesses. The approach of overcoming problems in the green transition with even greater investment in green policies is the right one, but it has its risks. The way out is to pool our scientific and technical potential as quickly and as best we can so that we can find sustainable, financially viable solutions to the big problem - how to store energy. This is the answer to countering future crises and this is where our efforts should be focused, the Head of State summed up.