The politics of Bulgaria's uneven energy transition

Despite steady RES uptake, Bulgaria has failed to decommission its coal-based electricity-generating facilities. Why are the country's mines and coal-fired power plants still in operation, contrary to market logic and the EU's climate policy goals? This paper accounts for the uneven progress of energy transition in Bulgaria by examining its domestic political dynamics. It accordingly builds on the recent political economy of environmental reform literature that expects political actors to temper their greening ambitions in fear of voter backlash. Bulgaria offers a critical test of the latter proposition: its cost-conscious, highly volatile electorate makes it the most likely setting to observe electorally-motivated reform rollback. The analysis of interview data and available documentation confirms that post-2010 Bulgarian governments have shunned bold decarbonization measures. In the relatively stable 2010s, politicians could merely ignore the decarbonization goal. In the 2020s, by contrast, high frequency of electoral contests and looming EU deadlines have turned all parties, including seemingly progressive ones, into active defenders of the brown status quo . In effect, Bulgaria's coal-based political-economic regime has remained in place, benefiting from multiple, interrelated forms of state assistance involving subsidies and production guarantees, preferential policy access and supportive political discourses. The paper concludes that in the context of contemporary democracies, parties' electoral considerations may put sustainability reforms under risk. National-level reform rollbacks can further feed into the international level, tempering the level of environmental ambition in the regions which, like the EU, have sought to lead global climate mitigation efforts.