Bulgaria needs to balance economic development, environmental protection: Deputy PM

Bulgaria's Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev here on Thursday said his country needed to find the balance between the economic development and environmental protection, as well as to think ecologically.

"The main challenge of the environmental protection in Bulgaria is that there is still no sense of where the balance between the economic development, investment and environmental protection should be put," Donchev said while addressing a national ecological conference.

However, if Bulgaria had a mature, responsible political and social position on the balance between the one and the other, the country would achieve progress and environmental protection with much greater pace and scale, the vice PM said.

Secondly, he was worried that environmental protection was perceived solely as expenditure.

"The third that worries me is that when we talk about environmental protection, we put the emphasis on environmental infrastructure in two thirds of the cases," Donchev said.

According to him, the infrastructure was important, but environmental thinking should precede it, Donchev said.

"A kindergarten teacher could have more significant and lasting impact on environmental protection than a good construction engineer specializing in water treatment facilities," he said.

According to "The European environment - state and outlook 2015" report recently published by the European Environment Agency, industry's use of energy and natural resources has had a significantly harmful impact on the environment in Bulgaria.

Despite the decrease in Bulgaria's energy intensity, it nevertheless remained high among European Union member states, the report said. Endit