site.btaCITUB Insists President's Veto on Amendments to Energy Act Should Not Be Overruled

The Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Bulgaria (CITUB) insists that the President's veto on the amendments to the Energy Act should not be overruled, CITUB Vice President Ognyan Atanasov told BTA here on Friday. He took part in a regional meeting of the Trade Union held in Stara Zagora.

CITUB is strongly opposed to the adopted reform for liberalization of the electricity market for household consumers from the beginning of 2026. The organization believes that if the adopted changes come into force, the impact will not only be on those nearly 4.6 million domestic electricity customers, of whom 2.8 million are energy poor. “This is also about guaranteeing the operation of the Maritsa East TPP and Maritsa East Mines,” Atanasov noted. He added that every year 2.2 million megawatt hours of electricity are bought by the state through quotas by order of the Energy Minister, which guarantees the work of the TPP and the Mines. This is nearly 50% of the work of the TPP,” Atanasov explained.

He recalled that initially the household consumers had to enter the electricity market in 2023. “Under our pressure in November last year the National Assembly took a decision to postpone it until the beginning of 2026,“ Atanasov said. In his words, Bulgarian consumers are not ready for the introduction of liberalization. "In Bulgaria, incomes are not like the European ones, so in two years we cannot afford to pay such bills - we do not even know how many times higher they will be,” he pointed out.