site.btaMEP Tsvetelina Penkova: "The Sensible Approach Would be to Make the Green Deal the New Industrial Deal of Europe"

The Green Deal should become Europe's new industrial deal, says MEP Tsvetelina Penkova of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament. "We must use everything to be able to revive European industry," she said in an interview with BTA.

One of the last pieces of legislation Penkova worked on in her first term in the European Parliament was on re-industrialization of Europe. "What we have done so far needs to be translated into a working economy," she said.

Work on the energy portfolio remains key for her in the new European Parliament. She highlighted two priorities she will continue to work on: nuclear energy and energy connectivity.

Following is the full interview:

Energy was one of the topics you actively worked on in the previous Parliament. Will it be your topic in the tenth Parliament?

Energy remains a key and leading theme of the work and so I will highlight two areas as a top priority that are extremely important in European energy policy for the next five years. Firstly, nuclear energy. In the previous mandate, we achieved great success by recognizing nuclear energy as green, strategic, sustainable, we gave the sector a future. Now we need to secure European funding. Why is it a topic that has already started to be discussed? It is particularly important for countries like Bulgaria, which have yet to invest in new nuclear capacity. I think that financial support from the European Union in this direction will be essential.

The second main topic will be real energy connectivity. We already have clear investments in basic energy capacities, renewable ones, but it turns out that in order to have stability in the energy sector in Europe, we need to invest quite a serious amount of money and technological improvements in the infrastructure, that is to say, the construction of these large transmission lines that will be able to carry surplus electricity from one part of Europe to another. At the moment, we are basically discussing the north-south and south-north axis, of course, because of the specificities of the renewable energy sources that they produce. The interconnection provides stability for the energy system in Europe and guarantees long-term low electricity prices for both households and industry. That is to say, nuclear energy and energy interconnection are the two main priorities for which I will continue to fight.

Beginning yesterday, you are the President of the European Energy Forum. What does this position mean? What will you do there?

The European Energy Forum is the largest energy organization within Brussels. It is, of course, non-profit. It brings together representatives of the European energy industry and creates an opportunity for conversation, dialogue, discussion between the energy industry, the European Commission and the European Parliament. This is very important, because when we can talk openly with the experts, we often approve legislation in a practically workable way, because the industry tells us what the technological possibilities are, to make happen, for example, a requirement that we have written down, can it happen, can it happen across Europe, how long will it take? They had enough experts in the sector to be able to implement this legislation across the European Union. Practical sobering is an opportunity to create legislation that works and is not restrictive.

The other issue you were actively working on was the Green Deal, only with this configuration of the new Parliament, changes are on the horizon. What changes do you expect? What do you think those changes should be? 

The last year and a half of the previous mandate, a more pragmatic thinking started on the Green Deal. That is, ways in which it can be implemented. To actually talk in real terms about clean energy, clean manufacturing, and not so much about the abstract over-ambitious targets that we set ourselves. At the moment, I think that the sensible approach and to make the Green Deal the new industrial deal of Europe, that is, to use everything that is there as a basis to be able to revive European industry, and that was one of the last pieces of legislation that I worked on in the previous mandate, namely the industrialization regulation for Europe. Again, I say we are using clean energy sources, we are trying to make production more environmentally friendly so that there is not so much pollution. I believe that any sane person would want that. In a way that we create high paying jobs, that incomes go up. Symbiosis. But imagine a green deal in a new industrial deal. That is, what we've done so far now had to be realized in a working economy.

What else do you think is important for the new Parliament to do? What should be the main topics especially now, at the beginning? 

The main theme became obvious to the European citizens with their vote, the European elections showed it. The main theme is peace. We need diplomatic means and channels. Everything that we can use as a resource in this direction to do everything possible to stop all military conflicts not only on the territory of Europe, but also everything that is in the vicinity and threatens in one way or another the security of our fellow citizens. I believe that the message we were sent here in this Chamber was let us stand up for peace and let us fight to stop the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine as quickly as possible.

In this regard and in general, how do you see the work of the Parliament itself? A lot of far right parties have come in and they have another agenda, the Greens and the Liberals have lost, the left forces also have a different disposition. How will this Parliament find compromise, solutions? 

Much harder, in my opinion, but that does not make it impossible. Again, I stress that even when we are talking about policies relating to energy, to industry, I think that in order to make decisions, we need to take a slightly more pragmatic approach, which should facilitate the process of compromise solutions within even this configuration in Parliament. I stress that we still have the Socialists, the European People's Party and the Liberals representing more than 50% of the European Parliament. That is to say, it is a similar configuration to last time, but there will certainly be differences here, it is not just a question of the European Parliament. In fact, I rather see a problem in our work with the European Commission.  Remember that there are an awful lot of far-right governments that will have to send their commissioners here.

I think the composition of the European Parliament as we see it at the moment is relatively balanced and can find compromise solutions while the composition of the European Commission, perhaps, will be a bit more to the extreme right. The dialogue between these 2 institutions could create even more problems and delays in decision-making.

You say Commissioners. What should Bulgaria fight for? What kind of commissioner should we have? Is it time to have an Energy Commissioner or is it too bold? 

No, I think this is a wonderful portfolio that we have many reasons to want to fight for. First of all, I give a political view from this House and the House of the European Commission, so key portfolios are always given to countries that are not the three largest economies so that they cannot serve their national interests exclusively. That is to say, Bulgaria is in an excellent position to ask for the energy portfolio. That is a first. Secondly, Bulgaria is one of the best examples of a country within the European Union with a balanced energy mix. We have 1/3, renewable sources of energy 1/3 nuclear energy and 1/3. energy that comes from our thermal power stations, which is actually based on our own lignite resource that we have available, so the balance of our energy mix is a pretty strong argument in favour of why. We have the expertise we have, people with high training in the energy sector. And I think this is a portfolio that really deserves attention.

Neglected, by the way, is the agriculture-related portfolio. It is also important for Bulgaria and for other countries that have much more solid interests in this direction. However, that is why I say that when decisions are taken, the key policies are always looked at by the countries that have the expertise, but will also be able to defend the interests of the entire European Union at regional level and at expert level. I therefore believe that energy is certainly perhaps one of the most important portfolios for us, and we have good reason to ask for it.