Metallurgy and chemical plants, the biggest environmental polluters in Bulgaria, are in a race against time to meet EU ecological norms ahead of joining the Union on January 1, 2007.
The smoking-chimney industries, former symbols of a “prosperous” communist-era economy, are now having to invest in environmentally friendly technology to obtain an “environment permit” by the end of the year that will allow them to keep operating in the EU.
But finding the money is a problem for the old plants that were privatized several years ago when on the brink of bankruptcy.
“The metallurgy sector has already invested 2 billion leva (1 billion euros, $1.3 billion) to meet EU requirements and will spend an additional 1.5 billion leva in the next three years on environmental protection, work safety, decreasing greenhouse gas emissions and improving competitiveness,” Politimi Paunova, chairwoman of the metallurgy chamber, told AFP. Bank loans were used to supply most of the urgent investment in a sector that generated 12.6 percent of Bulgaria’s industrial production in 2005, Paunova said.
Only one of the big firms in the ferrous sector, Kremikovtzi Sofia, was given a transitional period until 2011 to implement its ecological investment program.
Its owner, the Indian company Global Steel, recently announced plans to invest 321 million leva by the end of 2011 to meet environmental norms and qualify for the permit. But non-governmental organizations protested, urging the Environment Ministry not to grant Kremikovtzi a green light for the EU.
Plants in the non-ferrous sector, which are among the biggest polluters of air, water and soil, have not been given transitional periods. “The government could negotiate more favorable conditions for the non-ferrous companies. They were suddenly driven to the wall and had to quickly pour money they could have spent increasing productivity into environmental protection,” Paunova said. “The short transitional periods are strenuous for the plants... The big question is money,” Yoncho Pelovski of the chemical industry chamber told AFP.
(AFP)