The “Belene” project has always been a hot potato for Bulgarian politics. We wanted to build a second nuclear power plant. But we never built it. Because we were constantly pressured from outside to end all energy projects with Russia, and we did not have the will and courage to take responsibility neither for the construction of the Russian project, nor for the construction of another alternative project for a nuclear power plant, for example, American or French. Despite the knowledge that the coal plants will be closed, despite the knowledge that the Kozloduy NPP has a limited life, despite the fact that we have already purchased equipment, etc. To begin with, it is extremely hypocritical to protest today about the “Belene” that did not happen, because the circles that most lament the situation had a long and golden chance to move the “Belene” project forward, but they did not. In terms of energy, for a quarter of a century, the basic part of the Bulgarian party elite resided in sharp dissonance – when it is in opposition, it always builds “Belene”, when it is in power, it concludes contracts with “Westinghouse”.
The result of the clever maneuvering is that Bulgaria finally lost the opportunity to be the energy center of the Balkans. We are also methodically losing absolutely everything, in all spheres of economic life, and becoming a territory of fast-food consumers of externally supplied security! Energy, food, military, information, etc. The equipment for the Belene NPP turned out to be an insurmountable obstacle to the implementation of other possible projects in the energy sector, because the consideration always arose that we have the equipment, we have paid for it, and something must be done with it. Let’s remember that the PP demonstrated a striking intention to restructure the energy sector even under the “Petkov” cabinet. PP and GERB see the sale of the Russian reactors as a release from responsibility to do something with them. The government will now be in a better position to start moving forward some elements of the ill-fated IP3 memorandum, the real purpose of which was to launch the idea of buying small modular reactors.
The noise that arose over the sale of the Russian equipment is to some extent aimed at distracting attention from what is contained in the list of demands to the Bulgarian state from the side of Ukraine. If it weren’t for the equipment, all the media would be discussing only the list and whether there was a request in it to provide our air defense systems to the Ukrainian army. When asked whether Zelensky also requested air defense, Minister Tagarev stated that everything was requested, without aircraft. Therefore, all public attention was drawn to the end of the Belene NPP project, so that the list could remain in the background.
It is good to think about why the Bulgarian political elites all these years did not have an energy strategy and political strength to implement a complex but necessary project like the construction of two new nuclear units. First, energy cannot be done without the will of the state. And we have been living in a post-totalitarian reality for 30 years, which is characterized by hysterical actions to break away forever from our complex past, so we are trying to introduce market fundamentalism as a creative environment in an even more extreme way. As Jaroslav Gowin, a famous Polish conservative, says, liberalism is a good technique for getting out of communism, but it has suffered a real fiasco as a theory of transition from communism to capitalism. The flight from all state involvement, including as a sustainable energy strategy, this deliberately manufactured neoliberal shock, has led to a dramatic stagnation and decline of the energy sector. For more than 30 years, Bulgaria has been dismantling, privatizing and closing down what was built in the energy sector during those 45 years. Well, there is still a little bit left, but there is time, some unpopular tasks we have already committed ourselves to do in the Recovery and Resilience Plan.
On the other hand, the concept of national economy in the world of globalization has long lost its meaning. The main goal of the national governments of the Eastern European scale is to attract the so-called external investment, that is, supranational capital, which has a nomadic character. And compensate for the lack of national development strategies with comforting European funds. The legitimacy of the state to set the foundations of some national economic doctrine, define cultural values and build security-related reserves is deliberately destroyed. Foreign investment capital is stateless, it makes the most of the territory and looks for new opportunities for a short and, if possible, guaranteed return. Unfortunately, projects in the field of nuclear energy, which have been under construction for years, are impossible without a deep commitment of the state in various ways, including as a role for the protection of the public interest. However, the soft dictatorship of the globalist doctrine, especially in immature democracies such as Eastern European ones, dismantles to the maximum extent the possibility of the state exercising authoritative competence and imposing the agenda of the society. Therefore, the result is the following: the post-democratic formation of politics in Europe in practice represents an incessant consideration of the interests of a supranational, global factor, which creates a strong conflict within the nation states. More and more groups are forming in the national political fabric that are distrustful and filled with political hostility towards this order. These conservative groups need to be silenced and ostracized. But they rightly arise and will grow as an attempt to debunk the neoliberal dominant doctrine that it will not be the final solution to the world. These movements, albeit with a rougher approach and filled with anger, declare themselves against the weakening of national democracy. They are “for” a return to some degree of economic sovereignty and against the tendency for national governments to be practically run transnationally. This is the basic conflict that is coming against us and is already here – the global dictate on national power through which de-sovereignation is practically carried out.
Place a rating:
☆
☆
☆
☆
☆
4
Rating 4 out of 52 votes.
2023-07-08 18:00:00
#global #dictate #national #power
