How can the green transformation become an opportunity for the region of Kyustendil after the closure of all coal-fired power plants, and the workforce be given the opportunity to earn a decent income in other positions? What hinders the retraining of workers and how it could be more effective – these were some of the topics of the International Conference “Just Transition in Kyustendil”. The event was attended by the President of the Economic and Social Council Zornitsa Rusinova and Ognyan Atanasov from the trade unions group of the Council.
Issues related to transition and economic transformation in coal regions have been on the agenda for ESC over the past few years. Employers, trade unions and civil society organisations developed and adopted a number of acts making specific recommendations.
“In terms of jobs and retraining, the specific opportunities of people in different regions must be taken into account. It should be taken into account that these regions are economically different and the approach should be specific for each region”, believes Zornitsa Rusinova.
The green transition theme goes hand in hand with important trends in demography and digitalization.
“There needs to be a good survey of the skills and qualifications of the workforce that could and would be willing to retrain to take advantage of the various projects that will be implemented. Such financial instruments should be turned into a real economic positive for the people,” said the chairman of ESC during the conference.
According to a representative survey of the “Trend” agency for the region, in Kyustendil they associate the green deal with fears of the closure of the TPPs, as well as with the loss of jobs, with expensive electricity, electricity regime, the price of life, financial losses. The share of people who are worried has risen to 38% and is slightly higher than in the other regions in transition – Pernik and Stara Zagora. Only 11% of Kyustendil residents have positive expectations that the Green Deal will contribute to new job opportunities, and 41% of them do not think that the retraining applies to them. Lack of interest was mainly related to confidence that they did not need the training, and 17% felt that their workplace would not be affected by the transformation.
ESC has developed a number of closely related acts to just transition and green transformation – among them are the opinion “Territorial plans for just transition – goals, challenges and expected effect” from 2022, Resolution on “National plan for just transition – a key tool for the transition to a climate-neutral economy” from 2024, opinion “Strategic planning in Bulgaria – challenges and opportunities for green and digital transition”, also adopted in 2024 and others. In the latter ESC called for Sofia-city to be separated into a separate planning region, as the current situation distorts the statistics in terms of investment for the South-West region, which also includes Kyustendil, Sofia region, Blagoevgrad and Pernik.
The current situation has proven to cause a serious imbalance in the economic development of the South West region, including by underestimating the intensity of the grant due to the disproportionately high relative to the national average wealth of Sofia city, which artificially increases the wealth of the entire region.
“The Council is also working on other analyses related to price disparities and regional imbalances, and we believe that the specificities of each region should be taken into account when planning support and investment by the state and the European Union,” the chairman of ESC added.
