Just Transition: Mission Impossible? Chapter One: Stories from Romania and Bulgaria
December 2022, announcement on the European Commission’s website: Romania will receive €2.14 billion from Just Transition Fund to diversify the economy and provide new opportunities for those losing their jobs in mining and energy – in six regions. One year later, a similar announcement appears on Bulgaria: it is to receive €1.2 billion from the same source to create new jobs in three coal regions and to protect communities that had depended on coal mining for decades.
A total of nine regions with an industrial past (and present) should have a new future in a green Europe – or at least hope for such. By the end of 2024, we embark on a journey towards some of them to see whether hope becomes reality. And if not, then why.
‘Making sure no one is left behind’ is the motto of Just Transition Mechanism. Launched in 2021 as a part of the European Green Deal, the mechanism was intended to mitigate the economical and social impact of abandoning the carbon-intensive industries in the regions that depended on them economically. In other words: it was to stimulate creation of alternative jobs in climate neutral sectors, thus preventing mass unemployment of the former miners, rise of poverty and depopulation of the coal regions.
– A just transition in Romania? So far, it has mainly been about missed opportunities – Corina Murafa, a leading Romanian expert on decarbonisation and structural change in industrial regions, does not have many success stories to share. Instead, she emphasizes us that the regions that have been granted funds from the Just Transition Fund have a difficult past behind them. They are not thriving economical centres. They all suffered during the economic transition of the 90’, having experienced closures of industrial facilities and a massive depopulation.
– Given the low capacity of public administration, it would be far from realistic to believe that they would identify investment opportunities and make big projects all by themselves. And unfortunately, they have not gotten enough support from the central government to direct strategic investments there. They have been left on their own – she says.
Greenpeace Romania activists, too, seem disappointed by how slowly are the ambitious prospects of making the economy more green and local communities more empowered progressing.
– Not much has happened in the last year – Alin Tănase and Andrei Crăciun from Greenpeace Romania tell us. With Andrei, this is our second meeting – we spoke previously a year before, and we discussed then the opportunities related to decentralizing energy production: involving citizens in the process, creating energy communities. Then, a year has passed and even a call for proposals for funding such projects has not been launched. Everything that happened, the activists recall, were three meeting of an energy community working group created by the Ministry of Energy.
There was also one call – for funding for small and medium-sized enterprises in mining regions. – The evaluation phase also finished, the projects were selected. But the contracts are not being signed to this date, and actually no money was spent, nothing happened concretely in the Jiu Valley – the activists say.
They are convinced that the bureaucratic factor is holding back the process. The money is supposed to be spent in the regions and by regional entities, but at the same time the whole thing remains highly centralised. – There is a blockage at the level of the Ministry of European Funds and the managing authority. The managing authority acts under the Ministry of European Funds, and each political change is directly impacting the programme. In 2024, two or three directors were changed. People come, people go, and things are just stuck – they sum up with a clear note of bitterness.
Things are stuck, and promises made. ‘The Ministry of Energy has been saying that Hunedoara and Oltenia energy complexes will continue working, that hydrogen production could be launched there, and that the new energy sources would allow us to keep all the workers. But if you talk to the ministry officials in private, they will admit that this is impossible’, Corina Murafa says.
Jiu Valley, the last moment for survival
It takes seven hours to travel from Bucharest to the Jiu Valley. On the last stretch before Petroșani station, the worn-out train laboriously pushes its way through the Carpathians. Those who travel during the day, can admire the landscapes, river gorges, mountains and valleys. But the passengers of the train leaving Bucharest in a winter afternoon move through complete darkness before the city of Petroșani appears. Then, it is possible to spot the Livezeni mine, located between the railway tracks and the river. It is one of the last four mines still in operation in the Jiu Valley.
Mining began here in the second half of the 19th century. In socialist Romania, the entire life of the region was subordinated to mining and energy production. Hundreds of thousands of workers originating from other regions of Romania came to get a job in the mine – dangerous, yet more profitable than most of other working class professions. But this was gone in the 1990s, which passed in the Valley in the shade of such words as ‘restructuring’, ‘unprofitable mines’ and ‘layoffs’. In 1997, the International Monetary Fund announced that it would not grant any further loans to Romania unless a series of reforms were implemented, including the liquidation of unprofitable state-owned enterprises. At the beginning of that year, nearly 45,000 people were still working in coal mining in the Jiu Valley. By 1999, more than half had been laid off, leaving fewer than 20,000 miners. The miners who were leaving received severance pay worth 15 to 20 months’ salary, but what would they do when the money ran out? They were supposed to fend for themselves on the free market.
Former Petrila mine seen from behind Eastern Jiu river. Mining lasted here from 1859 to 2015. Photo by Małgorzata Kulbaczewska-Figat
Alexandru Kelemen has seen the consequences of the rapid decline of the coal mining industry with his own eyes. As a social worker, he has seen unemployment, frustration, domestic violence and alcoholism take their toll. To this day, he sees people leaving the Valley in the hope of a better life in Timisoara, Cluj or abroad. But he still hasn’t lost hope. He is the president of the Association for Integrated Territorial Development (ADTI), a coalition of NGOs, and he continues to strive for a truly fair economic transformation.
He tells us what effects the call for small and medium enterprises has had in the Valley.
– Out of 36 projects, about 20 will be contracted, which means about 30-35 million euros given to SMEs to scale up.
In previous years, when the just transition of the Jiu Valley was discussed, the concept of tourism was mentioned in the first place. After all, the region is located in the heart of the Carpathians. Seems to be a perfect holiday destination for nature lovers.
– 30% of the projects accepted represent tourism. However, we decided that it was mandatory for the facilities to be located within the Jiu Valley cities. There was an appetite for hotels located far on the mountain, but we did not agree on that – emphasises Alexandru Kelemen. After all, the funds for just transition are supposed to support the declining mining towns, not disappear into resorts whose guests will not even shop in the Valley. Another potential beneficiary of the support is the production sector: there is a factory that produces pellets for heating purposes, another one produces LED lighting, and yet another one makes doors and windows.
Later in March 2025, details of another investment supported by Just Transition Fund are unveiled: Monsson, a major player in the production and assembly of components for renewable energy installations market, announces that its new factory will be located nowhere else but in the neighbourhood of the former Petrila mine, turned a culture zone by local enthusiasts, and made famous by Andrei Dascalescu’s movie Planeta Petrila.
Kelemen believes that other former mine areas could win a new life. While the ground ownership issues are still to be resolved, the ADTI has even started sketching plans for mines Lupeni and Lonea (still in operation as of 2025). Their ambition is to keep and restore some of the buildings to commemorate the mining history, and to redesign the remaining areas to serve new purposes. This is not a utopia, but a strategy that has worked out for dozens of former industrial zones in Poland, Germany or the European South.
Yet sometimes it is difficult to wait. One would like to see the results of many years of effort. Alexandru Kelement could then show them to his neighbours who now sometimes tell him: you talk, you create projects, but you do not deliver. He knows very well that this might be really the last moment for rescue for the Jiu Valley community. If the younger generation does not see jobs, good quality housind and healthcare, all dreams of a just transition will be killed by demographics.
Monsson’s factory, an investment amounting to 10 million euros, is planning to offer 50-70 jobs in the first phase. Even the most ambitious projects, suggesting a maximum diversification of the Jiu Valley economy, do not envisage a return of hundreds of thousands workplaces, as in the times when heavy industry was the state’s priority. It is simply too late to repair everything that has been destroyed during the chaotic ‘restructuration’ period of the 90’. For the miners who were laid off then, the transition was not just – and decades later, it is too late for justice. Many of them are gone. Others live with the opportunities they carved out for themselves – on the pension, or as self-employed servicemen.
The question for the Valley is: is it possible that the children who now play on the pedestrianised zone in the centre of Petrosani, or go to school in Lupeni and Vulcan, will study in the local university and stay where they were born?
Would the girls walking the bridge in Petrila stay in the Jiu Valley for longer, or will they emigrate like thousands of people did? Photo by Małgorzata Kulbaczewska-Figat
Miners have not benefited
Alin Munteanu, chairman of the Cartel Alfa trade union at the Oltenia energy complex, shows no enthusiasm about the hotels built with money from the Just Transition Fund.
‘Our region has benefited from the Just Transition Fund, we received a couple million euros. They were spent on building boarding houses or hotels, which does not create very many jobs. The miners have not benefited so far. The hotel and hostel owners have’, he comments.
Munteanu is based in another mining region – Gorj, south of the Jiu Valley, but he knows the situation of the miners there, organised in the same federation, very well. He has no illusions: mining is coming to an end everywhere in Romania. When the candidates of nationalist and sovereignist parties promised to reopen closed mines during the presidential and parliamentary election campaigns in Romania in 2024, he did not believe a word of it – unlike many other residents of mining regions. In the presidential elections in December 2024, which were later annulled, they voted for the sovereignist candidate Calin Georgescu. But according to Munteanu, Georgescu just tells everyone what they want to hear and has no idea about the realities of Romanian mining.
– It would take many trillions of dollars to reopen the mines. Our excavators are from the ‘70s. Does anybody have money right now to buy new excavators? – he asks.
The Romanian trade unions have negotiated special severance packages for miners whose jobs will disappear. However, these solutions have nothing to do with the Just Transition Fund. Munteanu cannot even imagine reaching for the fund’s resources. For him, this would mean that his labour organization agreed to destroy the workplaces.
The Romanian trade unions are not convinced by promises that a just transition will create jobs as good as those once provided by the industry. In fact, they point out that the reality has been much less favourable for the workers.
‘There is no coherent strategy linking the exit from certain sectors that harm the environment, and the integration of workers into other sectors considered to be more environmentally friendly. It is hard to believe that a miner will get a job as a barber or a confectioner after the Just Transition Mechanism has financed some business’ – comments Florian Marin, president of Federation of Free Trade Unions of Romania. ‘We are saying that the mechanism should create jobs when they are needed because it is useless to fire a miner and provide him with a job two years later, when the European funds will generate some concrete results. No one in Romania has thought to correlate these things’.
Reskilling? But towards what industry?
The words of disbelief in politicians, their promises and assurances that miners and energy sector workers will never be left behind, also resonate strongly when we go to Bulgaria. What the Jiu Valley was for Romania, the Stara Zagora region with the Maritsa East energy complex is for Bulgaria.
‘Our complex feeds people from four districts – Stara Zagora, Haskovo, Yambol and Sliven’ – Georgi Gospodinov, chairman of the KNSB trade union in Maritsa East, tells us. Biser Binev, who leads the other largest Bulgarian trade union confederation, Podkrepa, in the Maritsa East mines, estimates the number of people affected by the prospective coal phaseout at even 80-100 thousand. While 10-12 thousand are employed directly by the energy complex, there are also their family members and people employed in companies that offer auxiliary services to the mines and power plants. Experts not related to the trade unions, however, tend to give much lower estimations. According to Dimitar Sabev, economist at the Economic Research Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the number of those affected is not higher than 30-35 thousand people: about 11,000 workers of the sector, a similar number of people in ancillary industries and a further 10,000 in related services.
KNSB has chosen a different path than the Romanian trade unions. As its vice-president Ognyan Atanasov told us, the federation could not pretend not to see that the energy transition process was already happening. 350 people were left without jobs when the American-owned thermal power plant ContourGlobal closed at the beginning of 2024, and the unions do not want this to happen again on an even larger scale.
When meeting Ognyan Atanasov, we are not unfamiliar with the story of ContourGlobal. It was earlier explained to us by Dimitar Sabev. ‘In 2001, Ivan Kostov, the then Bulgarian prime minister, signed two long-term contracts with secret clauses. Two American companies promised to invest in coal energy production in Maritsa East, and the Bulgarian state in turn promised capacity payments. In other words, regardless of whether these plants produced electricity or not, the state was obliged to pay them a lump sum of around $150 million per year each’, he told us. ‘In the years that followed, these plants changed hands several times. In 2011, one of the plants was bought by ContourGlobal, the global energy investment platform of Reservoir Capital Group, an American hedge fund. In 2022, it was sold again to KKR, an American global investment firm’.
As Sabev put it, ‘the inexperienced Bulgarian government promised huge capacity payments in return for some foreign investment. Thanks to these state transfers, the two American power plants were fully operational, even as the state-owned power plant piled up debt. But the capacity payments ended in 2024 for ContourGlobal – and it became unprofitable to burn coal. So they closed the plant’, he concludes.
Not to stand idle when such things are happening, Atanasov explains, the KNSB engaged in a large-scale project of mapping the workers’ skills, as well as their willingness to reskill and accept a job in alternative industries. Previously, the trade unions had done a survey of the labour market in the Bulgarian coal mining regions. ‘All Bulgarian operators have intentions to switch to gas, to build hydro plants or to do other investments in a low carbon economy. Based on these, we intend to determine what jobs would be available and what skills would be required’, Atanasov says. But the workers are afraid to even take part in the mapping. They wonder if they would not be the first to be laid off if they fill in the questionnaire. ‘90% of those questioned want to stay in the energy sector’ – he notes.
‘Our people are asking – if I retrain, what profession should I retrain for? Mushroom picker? Shepherd? Hairdresser?’, Georgi Gospodinov says. ‘If there is some other industry around us, we will retrain in that direction. Our labour is hard physical labour. If there were alternative factories, people would go to a better place by themselves. But there are not’.
For Gospodinov, all suggestions that Stara Zagora region could build a new economy based on mechatronics, agriculture or hydrogen production are just a mere talk of the politicians – which cannot be trusted. Too many times, he suggests, have the workers heard promises and visions – things that never materialized. He is aware of the hydrogen-related projects which were announced to take place in Stara Zagora – but he waits for real action.
Dispersed investments
We meet Rumyana Grozeva, executive director of the Agency for Regional Development – Stara Zagora and the coordinating manager of the European Innovation Hub Zagore, in the Agency’s office in the city centre. We sit down between shelves full of books and documentation. This is where the agency, with the support of the European Commission, has been working on a strategic framework for diversifying the local economy. And this is not daydreaming – the plan is to be based on existing resources.
For Grozeva, clean energy, mechatronics and agriculture being the new pillars of the local economy are not just visions, but the three sectors with the highest growth potential.
‘To put this vision into action, we are currently working on an Action Plan and an Investment Plan at the intersection of these three sectors as part of the Strategy for Research & Innovation (R&I) in the energy sector’, she says.
She remembers very well the times when the Stara Zagora region was far from being an economic monoculture. ‘In the not-so-distant past, at the beginning of the 90’ transition, we had a highly diversified economy. It developed a cluster structure, known as state economic associations, covering various industries and agriculture’, she recalls and points out that not all the industrial facilities of Socialist times are gone. ‘However, these industries are not large enough to provide employment for all the people who have relied on their jobs in the energy sector’, she adds.
Grozeva is aware of the fears expressed by many people in the area – from workers to specialists in leading positions – about catastrophic consequences of mine closure. However, she would probably disagree with the trade unionists claiming that absolutely nothing is happening in Stara Zagora in terms of creating alternative workplaces. ‘Special efforts are being made to create industrial zones, to attract investors, especially in the field of green energy’, she argues. ‘There are investments coming into the region, but they are still not sufficient and, more importantly, they remain fragmented. Instead of being guided by a clear vision for development based on existing resources and the creation of clusters or industrial symbiosis, they appear scattered and uncoordinated’.
‘Many people have worked in the energy sector for decades, often believing that this is their only career path. If we provide clear prospects, adequate training, and support, they will embrace the change and contribute to the region’s modernization’, she sums up with confidence in her voice.
According to Dimitar Sabev, the alternatives are already emerging, even if they do not cover a number of jobs identical to this in the Maritsa East complex. ‘But coal workers do not want the alternatives’, he claims. In his view, both employers and the unions mislead the personnel, hoping to keep the status quo as long as possible. He shares a story his colleague told him shortly before our meeting. ‘There is a new municipal solar park in Radnevo – a large solar park that could meet the energy needs of the entire municipality. My colleague called the human resources manager of this solar park and asked: “Are you hiring?”. It turned out that there were many vacancies and the company was willing to hire the potential candidate over the phone. The locals still working in the mine boycotted the company’.
Health for higher salary
Unlike the Jiu Valley, the Stara Zagora region cannot make realistic plans for life after coal based on tourism. In terms of natural heritage, there is no comparison with the breathtaking Carpathian mountain ranges. In fact, a few thousand people – and an investment of 14-15 million Bulgarian levas, as the Podkrepa trade unionists estimate – would be needed to rehabilitate the areas where opencast mining continues now – to avoid an ecological disaster after the mines finish work. While the remnants of Antique Roman forum, a mosque converted to Museum of Religions, a couple of historical Orthodox churches and a museum devoted to Bulgarian expressionist poet Geo Milev are to be found in the city centre of Stara Zagora, this is all too little to expect that guests fascinated by history and culture would flock in numbers allowing the region to make tourism the principal source of income.
A responsible politician, Dimitar Sabev tells us, would do his best to assure that the coal phaseout in Stara Zagora region is a new beginning for industry in the region. For him, the 15,000 people with industrial skills, from workers to engineers with PhD and Masters’ degrees, are an asset which must not be neglected. Especially that there is no need to build new industrial infrastructure, nor the energy network. ‘What could happen if we were to think strategically and take measures such as building industrial parks and giving loans to the engineers who are now employed in the coal sector? This very miserable coal region of Maritsa East could be turned into a centre of green energy research and development for all of Eastern Europe!’, he claims.
Thermo-power plant Maritza East 2 (source)
He has no doubt that in the long term everyone would profit from such a turn of events. He admits that right now, the alternative workplaces – like the ones in the solar park – do not offer a salary as high as in the mine, even though the remuneration was 20-30 percent more than the Bulgarian average. Was it not worth consideration, especially given how unhealthy the miners’ work is? Moreover, it is not only miners’ health which is affected by coal burning. Everyone in Bulgaria suffers from air pollution inevitably caused by this mode of energy production.
However, according to Sabev, people choose a higher salary than to take care of their own health. ‘We Bulgarians are the heroes of suffering. People in the coal regions are aware that they may die prematurely – many men would not live beyond 60. But we are happy to sacrifice ourselves to provide for our families. Workers are willing to trade their health for the future of their children’, he comments. A future which, he adds, is often linked to leaving the mining region forever and moving to the capital city.
Being highly sceptical of the trade unions’ attitude, Sabev admits, though, that they have the right to ask for large-scale alternatives if Maritsa East is to disappear one day. In other words, we are back to the question of responsible politicians capable of long-term planning.
And this is probably the most difficult question when we discuss Bulgarian just transition prospects.
From Big Coal to Big Solar
‘We really need a clear direction and a clear commitment. We need to know what is going to be done year by year. Only this way the measures applied within the just transition framework would be properly aligned with everything else. Then, nobody will be left behind in the process of decarbonisation. Instead, we see right-wing populist parties using the issue of just transition to make a political scandal. They are stopping the process. We are nowhere in the process of reviewing and changing the just transition plans, indicators and milestones’, Georgi Stefanov, founder of the Climate Coalition Bulgaria, tells us.
Stefanov has been active in the field of climate change, environmental protection and energy for more than 15 years. He also headed the political office of the Deputy Prime Minister for Climate Policies in the government of Kirill Petkov. In 2023, he co-authored a study entitled Mission Energy Transition, in which he outlined the challenges still remaining to be solved in order for just transition to happen in Bulgaria. His list gives a sad picture – just transition plans for Bulgarian coal regions were accepted with a delay, 200 millions from the Just Transition Fund have already been lost, and there has still not been a national plan or roadmap. National strategy for attracting investment into regions in transition? Missing. Moves to prevent greenwashing? None.
When we spoke to Stefanov one year after launching the study, the issues he named remained unsolved. A permanent political crisis, resulting in a series of snap elections, was not a good context for taking decisions. Instead, new promises were made. Again, the miners heard that there might be no energy and economic transition at all. The European Union and the Green Deal came under heavy criticism. Bulgaria’s National Resilience and Recovery Plan, on which Stefanov co-worked and which was hailed as the greenest in Europe, has been modified – to the extent that all its initial ambitions are gone.
And all this happened years after Bulgaria missed the last real chance to renegotiate anything concerning energy transition.
‘Back in 2019, there existed the last possible option for derogation of the national aid for the coal power plants. The timeline was missed, the opportunity to renegotiate was missed, and therefore in 2020 it became absolutely obvious that these installations could only work on a market-based approach. And it was clear that one day it would become economically unreasonable’, we hear from Petar Vitanov, a former Bulgarian MEP, no longer an active politician. ‘Let me say this again: we all knew in 2020 what was going to happen. But the politicians kept putting this topic under the table. Instead of negotiating the just transition, taking advantage of the opportunities, we were lagging behind’.
Biser Binev of Podkrepa, who has also heard dozens of such empty words, suspects that in the end, no one in the Bulgarian state structure really cares about a just transition and a future for Maritsa East.
‘The state has a single interest in our enterprise being closed because the most valuable thing about it is the land itself. It is a huge area. Maybe the idea is to make it all a large solar park’, he wonders.
Dimitar Sabev hinted at a similar outcome of events. In his view, a just transition in Bulgaria, halted by both employers and the trade unions in the energy sector, and having no powerful and visionary advocates in the political class, might actually end up as a passage from Big Coal to Big Solar. The business would not tolerate a situation in which energy production is no longer profitable, and would look for alternative sources of income without wondering too much about the social impact.
Just transition was supposed to leave no one behind, and to allow the local communities to have a say on how they could reshape their economy – now green and sustainable. But if the transition happens only at the ‘technical’ level of finding the most effective green energy production models, all the democratic and grassroots elements are lost.
The hopeful Black Heart
Stefan Krastev, deputy mayor of Pernik, a city once known as the ‘black heart of Bulgaria’, is one of the rare optimist voices whom we meet when discussing the just transition prospects of Bulgaria.
It was in Pernik that the history of Bulgarian mining began. Now, this history is over – the mines were closed, and both tools of the first workers and the more modern machines stand idle in an underground corridor of the local Mining Museum. There is also a figure of the miner with a lamp standing in the roundabout in the city centre, and more workers’ faces carved in stone on a memorial plaque of Socialist times, referring to a mass strike that took place in Pernik in 1912. Today’s inhabitants of the city can see their ancestors memorialized in stone, as nearly every family here had someone who worked in the mining sector.
When the municipality speaks to citizens about the coal phaseout, they also mention these miners of past generations.
‘Our grandfathers achieved economic and social successes, because they were using the most modern technologies of their time. We cannot expect to be successful in economy, nor in social life nowadays, if we keep on using the technologies of our grandfathers. We have to use the high tech of our era – this is what we say to people’, Stefan Krastev tells us. He believes that the local authorities’ message does not fall on the deaf ears, even though – or perhaps because – Pernik has its own difficult story of industry closures in the 90’.
‘We have very strong activism there, we have organisations also that are on board the process. Pernik has a very stable and proven policy of attracting young people in the decision-making process’, Krastev speaks with pride in his voice.
What makes a difference between Pernik and Stara Zagora region is definitely the size (it is definitely easier to work on a transition plan for one 100,000-thousand city), but also the structure of the local labour market. Even if the energy transition process leads to closure of thermal power plants and people are made redundant, no spike in unemployment rates is expected by the municipality. ‘There are companies that are producing silicone items, or businesses that work on energy storage solutions. The food processing industry is also very strong in Pernik. We have, among others, a chocolate factory, which exports chocolates to Belgium’, Krastev enumerates significant local employers. ‘Working in the fields of storage solutions or the reusage and rejuvenation of machines and equipment, and of course the clean production of energy are all sectors in which Pernik can specialize’, he adds.
One more factor makes us more convinced that Pernik’s just transition success story is actually possible – even in the context of Bulgarian political instability. It is the capital city of Sofia located just forty kilometres to the north east – easily reachable by car or by train, departing regularly from a run-down railway station. In the tough times of Bulgaria’s socialism-to-free market transition, the proximity of Sofia and to the capital’s job market saved Pernik from depopulation. And in the 21st century relocating to Pernik remains a more affordable option than looking for accommodation in the capital itself for those who move from the more remote corners of Bulgaria.
Only miners made from stone are to be seen in Pernik’s streets. Remembering the local history, the municipality firmly thinks of the future related to other technologies. Photo by Małgorzata Kulbaczewska-Figat
Bulgaria’s steps ahead, Romania’s turn
Between 2022 and the beginning of 2025 Bulgaria was ruled by a series of interim governments, with no clear policy line in a number of sectors. The roadmap for climate neutrality, supposed to outline how the just transition would take place in Bulgaria, with deadlines and funds for the different stages, was not approved by any Bulgarian parliament – due to the resistance both inside the chamber and in the society. Bulgaria was the last EU member state to submit the Territorial Just Transition Plans. And after they were submitted, a two-week long protest was staged on the Sofia-Burgas highway in the zone of Stara Zagora.
But in January 2025, the cabinet of Rosen Zhelyazkov was formed, uniting a number of political parties and forces and thus winning a certain stability. The government’s main ambition is to get Bulgaria into the eurozone. It has also expressed a desire not to delay some reforms from the packages in the Recovery and Resilience Plan, so that some of the plan funds can be unlocked and preserve the interests of coal mine workers. Talks have intensified with labour unions over the future recultivation of Maritsa-East mine territories. There is an effort by the government to push for the creation of a new company, which will be entrusted with this task, and it will receive the respective funds from the Just Transition Fund. But the mine is strongly opposed to such a solution. Miners and union representatives are still afraid that the mines could be cheated to lose ownership of the land, which they work upon – the only thing, which they have as an asset. Therefore, a solution is being seeked that allows for guarantees for all the stakeholders.
Other funding opportunities have also started emerging. The programme started with the calls for projects and distribution of funds for insulation of buildings in the three coal mining regions – Stara Zagora, Pernik and Kyustendil, after the mapping of coal mine workers’ skills and coal power plants workers’ skills unfolded, in March 2025 the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works (MRDP) opened the programme “Support for Industrial and Logistics Parks” in the three coal regions – Pernik, Kyustendil and Stara Zagora. It has a budget of 76 million euro, allocated under the Development of Regions 2021-2027 Programme (RDP) under Priority 4 “Just Transition”.
The procedure “Diversification and adaptation of small and medium-sized enterprises to the economic transition” has been open since the end of January 2025. Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises from all over the country are eligible, but the investments they apply for should be implemented in the three coal regions.
The procedure “Support for workers in the affected sectors through training for qualification and retraining” is underway too and has a budget of 56,24 million euro. By the end of the year, according to the plan, the “Support for Energy Communities for Sustainable and Clean Energy Solutions” procedure should open with a total budget of 153 million euro. The idea is to introduce the use of green energy in the final energy consumption of public buildings, promote the creation of energy communities, and increase the use of renewable energy.
Will the programmes produce the tangible effects which will, in turn, contribute to dispersing the distrust around the very idea of coal phaseout and just transition? This question can be only answered with time.
Similarly, in Romania the procedure for small and medium enterprise already took place and in February 2025, the one for microfirms, with a total budget of more than 200 million euro, was opened.
But while the Bulgarian government has never taken an open anti-EU stance, even though there has been resistance to the Green Deal and just transition, the Romanian attitude as of 2025 is very different.
The inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the president of the USA encouraged the energy minister Sebastian Burduja to say that he prefers a ‘smart deal’ to a green deal. ‘While the European Union is rushing to become a world leader in decarbonization through the Green Deal, the global economic reality is that this model risks losing competitiveness and economic relevance’, he wrote in his Facebook profile. And he continued: ‘High energy costs are another example of a self-imposed burden. CO2 emission certificates and the marginal pricing mechanism artificially double energy prices and make our industries uncompetitive’.
Burduja went as far as to claim that the ‘greening policies’ were not well-thought out public policies, but a blindly followed ideology that, ultimately, started to cost everyone dearly – economically, socially and strategically.
With these words, the Romanian energy minister clearly positioned on the side of Romanian sovereignists in the debates on the green and just transition. The leading sovereignist presidential candidate Călin Georgescu was disqualified from participation in the May 2025 repeated elections, so he would not have a chance to try (re)opening and (re)exploiting the coal mines, like he announced earlier. But Burduja is holding a public office, and from this position he entered into an open conflict with the green NGOs. After an American court fined Greenpeace with the sum of 660 million dollars for illegally blocking a strategic energy project, he called on all directors of national energy companies to seek maximum damages in court against NGOs that file lawsuits in bad faith.
Furthermore, the Romanian Ministry of Energy requested in February 2025 that energy companies in which the state is a shareholder and to public institutions in the energy sector to analyze the negative effects of the European Union’s Green Deal policies and European and national environmental legislation on them, Ziarul Financiar reported. Again, Burduja claimed that the green deal harmed competitiveness and energy security of member states and that “the recent report prepared by Mario Draghi reveals a series of negative effects that endanger the competitiveness of the European Union on the global stage”.
With such an attitude of the ministry responsible for just transition coordination, one cannot expect a breakthrough for the coal regions. Especially that the international context seems more and more unfavourable for ambitious green economy visions.
No one left behind?
Even before the European Commission started speaking more on arms than on green transformation, Corina Murafa saw a tremendous risk inside the mechanism itself.
‘We speak of a concept which is anchored in a funding mechanism, but not in a political and policy framework. We have put all our efforts into something which consists of pumping money into selected regions, without having a more nuanced policy approach, without having any observatory, monitoring or forecasting mechanisms’, she says.
In other words – the European Commission promised that no one would be left behind, but did not really care that the promise would be held, and how. Countries and regions with good money absorption practices, higher levels of trust and quality public institutions received another opportunity to win. Those who need more assistance keep struggling, and the lack of short-term results only feeds more frustration – both among the engaged citizens who try to do a change and among those who wait and wonder what might happen next with their jobs, their cities and their families.
And when the pace of change turned out to be low, and the new opportunities did not emerge easily, it was no surprise that the distrust and resistance appeared. ‘Who is going to tear down their house and wait for a new one to be built somewhere?’ – we heard such words from a few interlocutors, independently from each other. While the degree of optimism or pessimism about the future varied, we clearly felt an anxiety in the air. Not a hope for a bright future starting just in a moment, but an expectation of a tough change period.
We are speaking of a change as huge as the one of the 19th century, which catapulted the Jiu Valley into steam-powered modernity. And you can imagine it, walking through the Mining Museum in Petrosani. In the upper floor, one can see figures of the Momarlani, the indigenous shepherd population, whose settlements were rapidly replaced by mining shafts, the workers’ colonies and multinational cities whose inhabitants spoke Romanian, Hungarian, German and other languages. The museum’s visitors can grasp the atmosphere of the mining Valley: look into the eyes of miners whose photos hang on the walls, see their personal belongings – and read the horrific press announcements about mining incidents, claiming the lives of dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of people working underground. The miners have a reason to be proud of their work, without which there would be no energy production. And they also have a reason to call the Jiu Valley ‘Valley of Tears’.
Lonea, one of the last four coal mines still operating in the Jiu Valley. Photo by Małgorzata Kulbaczewska-Figat.
Just transition concept was a promise that the new transition period would not be powered by production statistics and profits only, but would genuinely take into account the wishes of the communities – of the common men and women.
But at the time when we write these words, Europe speaks more about military spending and security than about any big scale projects that could alleviate the people’s burdens. If just transition was to be over before it actually gained speed in Romania and Bulgaria, it would be another tragedy for the regions which were previously promised change and hope.
(to be continued)
This report has been prepared with the support of Journalismfund, within the scope of a broader project concerning just transition in Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and Czechia.
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