Rostislav Rashev: Politicians should listen to engineers and experts when deciding on a just transition
Interview with the deputy chairman of the KNSB trade union at TPP Maritsa-East 2 on attitudes towards just transition in the coal mining region and in Stara Zagora, projects and implementations of a post-coal economy in the region and the importance of coal for the Bulgarian energy sector
Vladimir Mitev, Malgorzata Kulbachevska-Figat
Rostislav Rashev is 49 years old and is the deputy chairman of the trade union organization of the CPSU at TPP Maritsa-East 2. More than 1800 people are members of the organization. The interview was conducted on 15 January 2025.
Mr. Rashev, how do the people in the Stara Zagora region and the workers in the Maritza-Iztok complex view the just transition?
We are talking in Stara Zagora. This city is one of the beating energy hearts of Bulgaria. Stara Zagora is very close to the Maritsa-East complex and provides the bulk of its workforce. But Maritza-East also employs people who live in Radnevo, Galabovo, Sliven, Nova Zagora and Haskovo. We have over 10 000 people working in our complex, in total in the mines and all the thermal power plants that are in this complex. These are the people directly employed. There are also many companies that carry out maintenance and other types of activities. So the jobs associated with the complex are much more.
The just transition is not well received by the public. It had a difficult start. It is still difficult today because the public does not understand what fairness is and what the new opportunities it offers are. Yes, it is dressed up in some very fine and very beautiful words about a green and clean economy, but it is a beautiful wrapper behind which there are also very serious reforms that have a social and economic price to pay in our region.
When people began to see the economic impact of a just transition on their personal wallet, on their personal social status, they were unhappy. Society split into several groups. One was the people working directly in the TPPs and mines and contractors in these companies. The other group is people who are not directly employed in the coal industries but live in these regions. The third are not directly affected by the just transition and do not live in these regions.
In our region, we have the largest number of people directly affected of all the coal mining regions in Bulgaria. The second group, those living in our region, depend economically on our activities. In the beginning, they were neither for nor against the green transition. They took it for granted and did not mind, but that changed with the start of the reforms. The opponents of a fair transition are growing by the day because they see that things are not working out exactly as expected. We have heard a slogan from the mouth of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, that no one will be left behind. But in fact that is not the case, and the examples are right before our eyes.
One of our TPPs closed last year because its long-term contract expired. It is owned by an American investor. All the people were laid off and abandoned. They left their jobs bitter because they did not get the respect they needed. They were given the least compensation provided for by law and were let go. After a few months, however, it turned out that our energy system could not take the strain, and this plant had to be restarted. Some of these people had to be called back to work. Even though staff were only needed for half the capacity of this plant, the task of re-hiring them proved very difficult. This was because people were offended and refused to return. With a lot of effort they brought some of the people back and two of the four units started working temporarily.
Let us see what the situation is with electricity generation in the country. The system load at the time of our conversation is 6682 MW. We can produce a maximum of 7500 MW from base load capacity in Bulgaria. At the moment there is no storm, there is no very big cold. But we are already at the edge of our capacity. At the moment we are importing electricity from all countries and exporting only to Romania. We import more than 500 MW.
That is, all the talk that we can do without the TPPs is not justified, because at the moment the TPPs produce half of the electricity – 43%. On an annual basis they have produced 30% of the energy, so the thesis that we cannot do without TPPs is absolutely clear.
In this situation, what do you think can be done? Even if you are right that we cannot do without coal-fired power stations in Bulgaria at the moment, is it a question of objective factors from some point of view leading to their closure?
I would venture to say that they are not objective from the point of view that these are attempts by the European Commission to force us in some way to switch to greener energy. We have a specificity of production, and this specificity of production does not allow us, to date, to make this sharp turn. We cannot do it immediately.
All the data and graphs clearly show that the longer the green transition goes on, the more economically things are delayed. Even in Germany, in Denmark, in Austria – the biggest supporters of the transition are showing increasingly poor economic indicators. Every day we see news of acute energy shortages in Germany, of attempts to activate gas-fired power stations, of nuclear power stations starting up. We know that all the nuclear power plants there have been closed. We also see the articles about a record number of industrial plants closing down in France. So the signals are very strong from all EU countries. These are also the conclusions of the report prepared by Mario Draghi and presented to the European Commission.
We have started to rush very much into green energy. It is all very well, there is nothing wrong with taking free energy from the sun and wind, but this green transition has to be done with a lot of brains, with very specific knowledge. It’s no coincidence that there are so many engineering majors in this field. It is no coincidence that there are so many specialists. We have to listen to them.
The solutions must be technical, not political. Let politics be green. There is nothing wrong with that. But if we can, let us make the green transition in a way that is not costly. At the moment, the green transition is costing everyone a hell of a lot.
It is important to note that the generation and marketing of electricity is actually a complex service. It cannot be seen as generation from a single panel, from a single hydropower plant or from a single thermal power plant in isolation. We are talking here about a system for which it is extremely important to be able to stand steady at all times in order to be able to ensure the production and marketing of this product.
I repeat, this electricity system must be in constant balance. If we unbalance the system, there is a risk that it will collapse. Even a second of collapse of the power system will cost at least a week to restore it. Often, the Bulgarian system is out of balance because more and more solar capacity is being added without taking certain specifics into account. As we are physically connected to the EU electricity system, when our system is out of balance, this immediately causes disruption to the pan-European electricity system. Last year, the country received numerous fines for being out of balance and disrupting the balance of Europe’s electricity system. This shows that engineering and technical things need to improve. There have been many applications for solar power connections.
The readiness of some parks is at 100%. They are simply not connected to the grid. I don’t know what will happen. Ultimately, there is an engineering staff that has to decide these issues – will they be connected, will they not be connected and how will they be serviced, but I know and practice shows it that any such capacity has to be backed up with other baseload capacity that is balancing. In Bulgaria at the moment only solar and wind capacities are being developed because they are green, but no balancing capacities are being developed in parallel with them and this leads to problems.
During the summer months, when it is cloudy and we have no sun, the system becomes more and more difficult to balance. Balancing through the NPP cannot be done because it is not a technology that can be quickly adjusted in power. We can’t increase its load in the evening and take it down in the morning. This is a NPP, it runs constantly at roughly the same output. It’s very difficult through coal-fired plants as well. We have the possibility to increase or decrease the active capacity in the TPP plant, but we do not have the possibility to turn off the boiler and light it every day, even more often. We cannot turn off the TPP in the morning and turn it on in the evening. No, it runs all day. And somebody has to pay for it running at a loss during the day so that it can meet the required needs in the evening. It’s expensive, and it’s likely to get more expensive. And when we work this way, we realize a loss. Yes, the TPP plants operate at a loss in the months with good sunshine, but they are the plants that provide the balance of the system and so they become indispensable in the summer season.
To what extent is what you are now saying, these engineering and technical arguments, understood at a political level? What do you expect to happen at the level of the Bulgarian government in terms of a fair transition? There are certain policies at European level, there are certain policies at national level. What happens at these levels when you make your arguments?
The trade union stood very seriously behind these issues. And, unfortunately, we have gone somewhat beyond our normal function to be able to look after our members.
The union has taken on an increasingly social function, but also an increasingly political function to try to convince politicians of these arguments. We are increasingly put in the situation of saying to them, ‘We understand these things. You hide them from us, but we understand them. We know them. And if you don’t know them, we can explain them to you.”
Increasingly, we’re involved in policymaking. Increasingly, we are consulted. We are becoming more of a factor because politicians have also started to see that they are being misled in one way or another.
Yesterday, we were at the Ministry of Energy again on various energy issues. Yes, the ministry is reporting on the indicators that I spoke to you about. But, unfortunately, sometimes political decisions are taken in spite of our advice. After all, these institutions are charged with making decisions. We trust that they will take us into account because we have always been objective and have not tried to mislead them. We expect communication to improve more and more.
As to whether they understand the technical arguments… probably, in the Ministry of Energy, everybody is aware. There are no random people there. In the Department of Social Policy, they may not understand. After all, it’s not everyone’s job to understand energy. However, it is good when experts speak to listen to them carefully. It is good to seek expertise, and independent expertise at that. To seek engineering expertise. And then they will probably be able to make even better reasoned decisions.
In fact, I hope that more and more decisions in the energy sector will be the result of informed expert choices, rather than political decisions taken just to satisfy some European Commission or EU demands. These are my hopes.
Malgorzata Kulbaczewska-Figat: We had several conversations with your colleagues and they shared their feeling that politicians either do not tell them everything, or lie to them, or use workers for short-term political purposes. What is the long-term right strategy for a just transition?
I deeply doubt that I have the capacity to speak on this issue of long-term strategy, because it’s more of a global issue, but … I also deeply doubt that our politicians think about this issue at all. Unfortunately, the political situation at the moment is such that there are a lot of short-term goals that are being chased. Political goals are within the horizon of a few months. A year is not even enough. You are probably aware that in recent years we have gone through a number of general elections and the inability to elect a regular cabinet. We will probably have a regular cabinet tomorrow. That is something that has not happened for a long time.
That is to say, living in a period not exactly of timelessness, but of short-term goals, and seeing how the world is changing literally in 20 days and how seriously the attitude to the green deal and how the world is changing globally has changed, I do not know whether such a plan exists. I see that the European Commission is sticking to its goals for now. It has not signalled any change. My personal feeling is that there will be such a signal very soon. Many factors have accumulated that give me that signal.
In Germany, there is an election on 23 February 2025. I saw a poll asking what the important issues are in society, and there the issue of green is in sharp decline – the graph is going almost vertically downwards. The Germans have become interested in economic development, not so much in green, but in economic development. To date, however, economic development is directly linked to the use of energy resources.
The stable energy resources at the moment are from fossil fuels. At the end of 2024, several statistical studies and surveys came out, and it turned out that the use of fossil fuels is once again on the rise worldwide. You could say that the green transition has not started at all. Yes, the amount of green energy is increasing, but so is the proportion of fossil fuels. Global energy demand is growing, and at a greater rate than the opportunity for green energy growth. In China alone, the increase in energy needed for 2024 is equal to 1.4 times Germany’s 2024 consumption. That’s a huge hunger for energy. This energy in China comes mainly from coal, from oil and from gas. They are also developing their solar industry very seriously. Almost all of the world’s solar panel production is concentrated there, but the growth in solar energy production is not matching the growth in consumption. And in China, there are no carbon emissions, or if there are, they are at symbolic prices.
What is this fair green transition then? How can China spew carbon emissions, we strive in every way to the contrary, pay too dearly for it, make all our production more expensive and end up selling it all to the same market. Is that economically viable? And is it fair?
We spoke to your colleague Ognyan Atanasov in Sofia. He is the vice-president of the KNSB and responsible for the just transition. He told us that in fact the trade union, as he sees it, is not opposed to the green transition or the just transition. Rather, it is looking within that process to achieve good conditions for workers. Because there are certain funds that can be absorbed and used for the interest of the workers. And he gave the example of the possible future mine reclamation project where a large number of people can be employed.
And also, if I understand correctly, what is called the mapping of workers’ skills is managed by the KNSB. I guess you have an idea of how these processes both as a discussion and as an activity are going on here on the ground. What can you share about the issues involved, if any, or the specifics of the implementation of these intentions? I suppose it is one thing to plan something in Sofia, it is another thing to have someone here on the ground implement it.
Usually in Sofia they look at economic indicators. If they sense the sentiment on the ground, it’s because of the conversations with us, the local union leaders. We are in constant direct contact with the people here and our colleagues in Sofia. Often they are also with us with people on the ground. We have great communication. The money that is being given under the different programmes and the different instruments is good to have because it is being offered to match a certain amount of work.
However, they should not be taken at any price. Let us forget the expression ‘at any price’. They must be spent with an approach, with sense. At times, I have the feeling that this money that is being offered to the country under the recovery and resilience plan and other programmes is like a bribe to do something that is not in our interest, not in the national interest. We have to be very careful about what we accept and what we do not accept.
Mine reclamation is a must. For many years, due to one factor or another, it has hardly been carried out, even though it is enshrined in the concession agreement. One way or another, sooner or later the mine will have to be closed, whether because of decarbonisation, because of a reduction in operating capacity or because its resource is exhausted. It will be closed at some point. And then reclamation is a process that must be carried out. It is mandatory because there will be a danger to the environment. Our coal has specific physico-chemical characteristics and is mined at considerable depth in strata with available groundwater. If at some point we simply abandon the mine, the working areas will flood, and this is unacceptable because we must protect the groundwater and the water of the rivers in the area. This is only a small part of the specifics. I am not much of an expert, but I am clear that reclamation is mandatory. And for reclamation, our own national funds are currently not available. It would be nice, if we could use European funds, to do it, but I repeat, not at any cost.
You have understood perfectly well that we are not really against the green transition. Let there be energy from the sun. Let there be energy from wind. These are, in principle, free and affordable energies, but let them be introduced without coming at the expense of our only national strategic energy resource. Let it happen so that the system does not break down. The system must remain balanced and the country as energy sovereign as possible.
On skills mapping and on the retraining issue, there is indeed such a process going on. There are people who are afraid of this process. Most understand that there is nothing wrong with sharing what skills you have, even outside your job, what additional qualifications you have and how you see the future.
Because the process is still going on, we do not have any firm conclusions from it, but observing the process, I see that people do not want to change their jobs. Because there are such issues in the mapping map. The workers feel good in their current jobs. They feel dignified with the work they do and they don’t want to change their jobs.
It’s normal, natural, that everyone fears change, especially such cardinal and life-defining changes. The fear also comes from the clear lack of alternative, of alternative employment. I should mention here the fact that there are, unfortunately, no other stable enterprises in the region that can employ so many people. At one point, some possible future businesses were listed to receive money from the recovery and sustainability plan in a tabulation that has become infamous.
And in that tabulation, there were tens of millions of leva of funding in exchange for the opening up of 5-10 new jobs. That is not the kind of money we want! Because it will benefit one operator, one entity, it will develop its activities, but almost nobody will be employed. After all, Maritsa-East and the TPPs employ over ten thousand people, and in the Stara Zagora region those affected by the eventual closure of the mines and TPPs will be much more.
We have to get money, to support our families, to keep the economy going, to keep this bank going, and this shop next to us, and this bookshop, the hairdresser’s. Everything is interconnected.
What other reservations do you have about the green transition?
I’ll tell you, I’m watching the solar capacity eat itself economically. It’s not just happening in Bulgaria. It is happening everywhere where there is too much solar capacity installed. I read yesterday that it is also happening in one of the most serious solar countries, Australia.
There is a period in the year of good sunshine. The sunny weather sets in, at 10am the angle of the sun is already good. The panels are starting to produce a very serious amount of electricity. And at 11 o’clock the electricity on the exchange costs zero currency units or even below zero i.e. the producers are not earning anything. There are times when the electricity costs minus a few monetary units, that is, it gets to the point where producers are giving money for producing electricity.
It gets to 16 o’clock. The exchange price starts to rise. Yes, but their production is falling because the sun has now moved to a different angle and they can’t get as much power out of it. The more the sun sets, the more the price goes up. The price goes up, but they don’t produce much and when the price is highest the sun has set. And what happens is that when the sun is shining, they produce a lot, but they don’t make a profit. And when they don’t produce, they can’t make a profit either. Ultimately, solar panels are not economically viable if they exist like that. It’s because the market is oversaturated with them. Solar plant operators are losing money and if they do not have financial support they will have to go bankrupt. With this example, I just wanted to illustrate my main concern, which is that this is being done in a very hasty manner and without a real global plan.
Bulgaria has not yet liberalised its household electricity market. When do you expect this to happen? And why has it been postponed several times so far? In Romania, for example, this market has been liberalised.
In Bulgaria, domestic consumers will probably not enter the free market soon. I expect another postponement of this reform to be voted on in the National Assembly very soon. The problem is that the vast majority of consumers in Bulgaria are energy poor and will not be able to meet the inevitable increase in their electricity costs. Many people will need to be helped, but someone will have to foot the bill. In a free, liberalised market, the electricity bill will certainly be higher than it is now. There are now 300 000 people receiving energy assistance. When the household energy market is liberalised, 1 800 000 people will probably receive energy assistance. And somebody has to foot that bill. And there is no one. That is why we are not ready for this reform.
This free market does not work effectively in Bulgaria for industrial consumers either. We have an exchange where prices change every day. Companies buy from intermediaries who buy from the exchange. But the result of these transactions is that the price often becomes very high, and for long periods. Right now it is around 500 leva per MWh.
In Stara Zagora, we have a large enterprise that deals with iron casting – a very energy-intensive process. At the moment, it has put all its staff on leave because, as of today, the state has not categorically declared and has not signed that it will provide assistance to these enterprises, for which this price is unaffordable. The aid consists of a ceiling on the price paid by all industrial producers, which until recently was 180 leva per MWh. Only you do realise that this is not quite a free market, with a price ceiling for the consumer. On the other side is the producer who has produced and sold energy at a higher price and has to be paid. This is where the state comes in. There is a profit ceiling. The funds that come as income above this ceiling are collected by the state to give to the business. Is this the free market?
You are a trade union leader at TPP Maritsa East 2. What are the differences in the situation of the workers there and their attitude to the just transition and those of the workers in the private TPPs? What is specific about Maritsa-Iztok 2?
I do not know if there is a difference in attitude. We are all afraid for our jobs. The fact that we are a state-owned company does not give us any security because, according to the latest regulations from the European Commission, state aid to coal companies is prohibited. So the fact that we are state-owned does not reassure us at all. And if at the time we could rely on borrowing, in a difficult period, to increase capital, financial incentives and ways to help us, at the moment this thing is over. As I have already mentioned, all the profit is being taken out of the company when it is there…
There is nothing left for us as a financial resource to cover our costs during the period of lower workload. we cannot modernise. We have plans to grow and meet the new needs of fast adjustable capacity, but we don’t have the funds. This is not good. Unfortunately, it continues to play out this way in short-term policy goals, with short-term solutions, and we are all worried.
The only thing that reassures me is that something cannot and will have to be done without us. Unfortunately, however, the summer will come and we will only start to play the role of balancing power. Then it might occur to someone to close us down again.
And then we will have a difficult time again. We have protested more than once. So far, we have managed to bring things back to normal rational thinking. If we have to, we will protest again and do what we have to do.
There is talk that agriculture, mechatronics and hydrogen are the economic areas that will develop in the region. To what extent are you working in that direction and are these viable solutions?
We know of two hydrogen projects. One is a small project. The other is much more ambitious. The small one is Zahir. The other one is B-Lion. The big project is very serious, I would even say over-ambitious. I do not have the capacity to evaluate it.
And what is happening on these projects? What is known about these projects?
Not much is known. We have not received any information or presentation.
I know there was a presentation in Sofia. We have not attended such a thing. We are not very familiar with these things.
Everybody says that this is some kind of alternative. A lot of questions are being asked. Nobody has answered those questions. Nobody has stood up with a straight face and said, “I’m the project manager and I’m ready to answer any questions you have.” There is no such communication so far. I mean, for us it’s just an idea. We don’t know what it is at all.
Naturally, when we heard about these things, we were also interested in hydrogen, in its future, what its possibilities are. We saw quite interesting things. We also saw about ammonia.
Our people visited plants producing nitrogen fertilizer from carbon emissions, with mixing with ammonia, and part of the idea of these hydrogen plants is also to produce ammonia. We are finding some common places where we have some points of contact and some opportunities for cooperation even with these projects. Nobody has presented them to us, nobody has given us any information, i.e. we cannot take a view on these projects as of today.
In contrast to the hydrogen projects, I can more clearly appreciate the possibilities of a career in agriculture because of my personal experience, because apart from working in TPP-2, I am also a fairly serious owner of bee colonies. Keeping bees is directly related to farming.
Farming stands today in a very different and modern way from the farming of the last century. In the sector, modernisation began after the Second World War and has developed at a uniquely rapid pace. Agriculture has now turned to mechanisation of processes and has used a lot of chemistry to facilitate processes and increase yields.
There labor force is being cut, it is not being increased! There is no need for additional labour in agriculture today! Agriculture cannot be relied upon to provide jobs for people.It is not alternative employment.
And right now we have wonderfully developed agriculture in the area. South of Stara Zagora, where the fields are, all kinds of crops are grown. There are no deserted areas. There is a shortage of land, and land has a huge price in this region.
Whether the energy companies, the power companies and the mining companies have it or not, nothing will change compared with agriculture.
There is talk of manufacturing robots. Where is this robot enterprise? No one has presented us with such a project.
In Stara Zagora was the most advanced robotics enterprise in the whole region, before 1989 . Beroe Plant. Some of the buildings are still standing. But there has been no production for tens of years.
15-20 years ago in Stara Zagora CDs were produced…
Yes. This is the other plant – at the other end of town. It was a plant for electronic devices and CDs, which was world-class and had only two analogues in the whole world. It is now owned by a Hungarian concern. For many years it produced almost nothing. Then there was only one workshop working there. A shopping mall was built in the car park of the factory. And now, literally a month ago, a bigger workshop was opened in the former factory buildings.
I read an article that some more production was starting. That’s nice, but it’s a speck of the base that was operating at the time. And the plant still has facilities to this day. These former factories have hundreds of thousands of square feet of production space and infrastructure that sits unused.
Hopefully some factories will be built. Hopefully we can use some money from the Recovery and Resilience Plan, some aid. Let us build on it. Hopefully, if it happens, the transition will really be fair for all involved. We are and will be a major pillar of that. The KNSB – guarantee above all of a rational and socially just transition for all.
This interview has been prepared with the support of Journalismfund, within the scope of a broader project concerning just transition in Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and Czechia in a comparative perspective.
Photo: TPP Maritsa-East 2 (source)
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