Genady Kondarev: Bulgaria's Green Political Space Could Unite in Time

Genady Kondarev works as an expert in EU Funds oversight for Za Zemiata, a non-profit, non-governmental Bulgarian environmental organization which is part of CEE Bankwatch Network.

He is among the founders of the Greens (Zelenite) and holds his membership, even though he does not take part in its governing structures.

In the interview, Kondarev shares some insight into the outlook of Bulgaria’s green parties for the upcoming European Elections and discusses Bulgarian, as well as EU-wide environmental concerns.

As part of Za Zemiata and CEE Bankwatch Network, how would you set out Europe's current priorities in environmentally-oriented politics?

Europe should recognize the climate change as a threat to global and European security at all levels - I'm not just talking about military security, but also everything else that is the texture of our society. We need now a European Parliament that would support very strong climate targets for 2030, because it's a very decisive moment now to set the new goals, as we had did for 2020 (20% down on CO2, 20% renewable energy and 20% energy efficiency). We need to have something much more ambitious for 2030, because the 2020 goals were set too low and in the next decades we'll have to start compensating this. Then we need to have as well strong priorities on climate change adaptation. Climate change is already here, and as it is a global threat, it's already affecting the lives of many people, the local production of small gardeners, small farmers, threatening lives whenever there are serious droughts or flooding. In Bulgaria this is too a very neglected area. We invest very little amounts of European funds in adaptation, except for...