For the third day the protesting miners and energy workers, who have closed key road intersections in Stara Zagora, are demanding the resignation of Energy Minister Rumen Radev and an extraordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers, the local trade union of Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB) in the Maritsa East 2 thermal power plant told BTA.
They described Saturday's meeting with Radev as ineffective. He went to Trakia motorway, where they are blocking the cloverleaf interchange near Stara Zagora, to talk to them at their invitation. The trade union declined talks at his invitation, held at the administrative building of the power plant.
The blockade of key road intersections in the municipality of Stara Zagora has been ongoing for more than two days. Early Friday morning, protesting miners and energy workers blocked the passage through the Hainboaz pass near the village of Gurkovo, the Trakia motorway cloverleaf to Stara Zagora and Haskovo at the 208th kilometer and the main Sofia-Burgas road.
"We insist on the Council of Ministers to hold an extraordinary meeting on Sunday with one item on its agenda, the withdrawal of the submitted territorial just transition plans. The deadline for submission to the EC has been met, now we want them to be corrected and our demands to be applied," the local CITUB told BTA.
The protest actions have been going on for more than two days now "because there is no audibility from the government and no real effective action from their side," the protesters added.
Later on Sunday, energy workers from Toplofikatsia Pernik and miners came out to protest with the demand to keep their jobs and to support their colleagues from Stara Zagora. They briefly blocked the national road from Pernik to Kyustendil in both directions. Traffic has now been restored.
The protesters carried banners and signs. They chanted that they wanted to keep their jobs and that the Green Transition is not fair.
They told journalists that if the territorial just transition plans are not revised, more serious protest action will follow.
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