Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
ruling against the minister in April 2007. The ruling required that the
minister either accept or reject the Chelopech EIA, but he still refused
to make a decision. In July 2007 Dundee Precious Metals pressed the
European Commission to start infringement proceedings against the
Bulgarian government for interfering with market competition (DPM
2007).
1
The proceedings had not been completed, when the company
and the Bulgarian government entered intensive negotiations in spring
2008. At issue in these negotiations were not only the environmental
concerns and permitting process, but also the fi nancial terms of the con-
tract. According to the original agreement, Bulgaria would receive only
1.5 percent of the profi ts and a fairly low concession fee. As elsewhere
in postcommunist countries (e.g., with the Turquoise Hill investment in
Mongolia and the Rosia Montana project in Romania), the terms of the
contract, once knowledge of them fi nally spread, shocked the population
at large, raised questions about who would negotiate such a contract
and why, and increased political opposition to the investment. During
the spring 2008 negotiations between Dundee and the Bulgarian govern-
ment, the fi nancial issues received the most attention, and the fi nal agree-
ment gave the Bulgarian government a 25 percent stake in the company
and increased the concession fee. In return for the changes, the govern-
ment agreed to unfreeze the EIA process, and on July 30, 2008, the
minister approved the Chelopech EIA.
Given the time limits built into each stage of EIA process, as well as
some omissions and changes in the plans submitted for review in the EIA
process, environmentalists and advocates for local democracy argued
that the entire EIA process needed to start again. The new green party
Zelenite (formed in 2008), the Cyanide-Free Bulgaria coalition, and a
neighboring village all fi led complaints to have the EIA process invali-
dated (Bacheva-McGrath 2008b). This argument was very important to
opponents to the project, because a new EIA process would start
after
Bulgaria's accession to the EU, allowing citizens and organizations in
Bulgaria recourse to EU institutions. The original processes were initiated
after Bulgaria's signature to several European and international conven-
tions and adoption of much of EU law, but prior to accession. The
Directorate-General for Environment of the European Commission thus
found no grounds to take up the case (2007; Popov 2008a). If the project
were to require a new EIA, then both the EIA process and the actual
conduct of the project could not violate EU standards. While activists
focused on the EIA process, Member of Parliament Maria Kapon intro-
duced a proposal into parliament to ban cyanides as another avenue to
