site.btaUnion Leader Says Planned Sofia Protest of Coal Miners and Energy Workers on Thursday Has Political Organizers, They Won't Back It

The leader of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Coal Miners with the CITUB confederation, Valentin Valchev, said that the Thursday evening protest which coal miners and energy workers are planning to hold in Sofia, is being organized "by a political party which is in opposition". "To me, the protest is politically tinted," he told BTA Thursday.

Valchev urged against any political interference in the union actions and called on the political parties not to take advantage of the protestors.

He was adamant that the planned Thursday protest is not a trade union action. 

The organizers are advertising it as "a national protest".

In multiple social media post in the recent days, Vazrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov urged people to join a nation-wide protest "in every town" on October 12. He says it is "a battle for the survival of the national energy sector".

Valchev said they will support and will always support the coal miners in Maritsa East and in southwestern Bulgaria, as well as the energy workers there "but we are not going to be part of the political games taking place at the moment".

Coal miners and energy workers have been protesting for 14 days now with demands for abandoning the planned coal phase-out and pulling out the territorial just transition plans which Bulgaria submitted to the EC in late September. They insist that the government should make a commitment to the exact amount of electricity that will be produced from coal and the coal that will be mined.

In a position put out on Wednesday evening, the CITUB trade union confederation said that the inaction and lack of communication with the protestors are creating a risk of escalation to effective strike action.