Energy dependence behind the Iron Curtain: The Bulgarian experience

This article develops a historical perspective on Bulgarian energy dependencies and the vulnerabilities linked to these from the 1940s to today. It comprises the story of how a (post)communist country experienced and dealt with rapidly growing energy imports. The article shows how Bulgarian energy system-builders over time tested different strategies to cope with the new geopolitical conditions in the post-World War II era. It discusses the immense dilemmas that emerged and the far-reaching oscillations of the Bulgarian energy sector: between East and West, between local systems and the imports, between dependence and vulnerability, between power and security. Three main periods are discerned and analyzed. The first started in the late 1940s with the rapid communist industrialization, through which Bulgaria’s energy supply became heavily dependent on import of both resources (coal and oil in particular) and technology from the Soviet Union. The second began in early 1960s with the transition to mega-power plants fueled both by domestic lignite and uranium (enriched, however, in Soviet Union), and a gradual development of policies of energy self-sufficiency. The third one was spurred by the collapse of communism in 1989. It features the country’s accession to the EU in 2007 and the largely parallel ambition to enable a transition to renewables, both aiming the reduction of the dependence on imported energy.