In negotiations with the EC, I believe that we will convince them that Bulgaria is not ready for the liberalization of electricity for household consumers.
This was stated by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Innovation Tomislav Donchev to BNT.
"Without an adequate social package to support the energy poor and at the same time not to end up in a situation where we pay electricity subsidies to someone who has a swimming pool at home, we cannot approach market liberalization," he explained.
How much the deadline for liberalization will be postponed depends on the parliament.
We are still awaiting approval from the European Commission to amend the Bulgarian Recovery and Resilience Plan, negotiations are in the final phase. It is possible that we will request and receive a second and third payment by the end of the year.
"A request for a second payment is being sent again, with the principle agreement being that if we have agreement on the scope of the reforms, the second payment will be received in early autumn, for example September, and that we will process a third payment by the end of the year. The two payments together will be in the order of 1.4 billion euros. Which would mean that by the end of the year we will receive half of the funds under the plan and we have the extremely difficult task next year to complete and implement all the reforms, to account for them and to request all the remaining payments - from the fourth to the ninth", said Tomislav Donchev.
The deadline for implementing the investments under the plan is August 2026. If we have not managed to pay off the funds by the end of the term, we will request their reinvestment in defense.
Donchev emphasized that the Recovery Plan represents one third of all European funding that Bulgaria receives.
As part of the F-16 deal, Bulgaria has concluded an agreement with "Lockheed Martin" for the joint development of drones, Tomislav Donchev announced. The document was signed five years ago, but in the last four nothing has happened regarding drones.
"10 days ago I had talks with representatives of "Lockheed Martin" and I think this agreement should be implemented. We will get access to technologies, certain licenses that will allow us production capacity in this area".