By Filipe Rufino - 7th March 2007
Environmental groups are calling on Brussels to take action against Sofia to stop plans allowing construction in Bulgaria’s mountains and coastal areas.
According to a coalition of environmental groups going under the banner ‘let Nature live in Bulgaria’, Sofia is poised to exclude around 40 currently protected areas under the EU’s NATURA 2000 scheme.
“As the investors lobby in Bulgaria is so strong and the Bulgarian government so open to suggestion, Bulgarian environmentalists believe that it is now up to the European commission, which has committed to halt biodiversity [loss] by 2010, to protect the excluded wildlife areas in the country,” said the coalition in a statement on Wednesday.
Their call follows a high profile spat between EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas and the Polish government over plans to build a highway through another NATURA 2000 site, the Rospuda valley in Poland which is one of Europe’s last swathes of virgin forest.
Dimas told Warsaw to back down or face going to the EU’s top court in Luxembourg warning that the Polish plan was in breach of EU law.
"We cannot accept irreversible damage”, said Dimas about the highway plans.
But Bulgarian diplomats are playing down environmental fears saying a final decision “will take some time”, as there are still many options on the table.
Sofia “is not in a hurry” for a face-off with Brussels over the sites, a diplomat told this website.
Around a third of the country currently comes under NATURA 2000 protection and Sofia is concerned that construction restrictions could hamper the country’s development.
Brussels will study the issue once the Bulgarian government’s full position has been made available, said a commission spokeswoman adding, “we treat every country the same way [when evaluating environmental compliance]”.
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