06.07.2022
Diplomats from 16 countries gathered in Sofia to discuss the impact of the war in Ukraine on energy and climate policy at the 11th edition of the Energy and Climate Diplomacy Seminar. The dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration and director of the master's program "Energy Markets and Services", Assoc. Dr. Atanas Georgiev, participated in the seminar with a guest lecture and with a publication in the English edition of the same name, presented during the event. The seminar was held in the period June 20-25 at the "Astoria Grand Hotel" in Sofia and is organized according to a project within the framework of the Bulgarian aid for development and cooperation. A total of 33 participants took part in it, mainly representatives of the countries of the Western Balkans and the Black Sea region.
The seminar was started by the Minister of Energy, Alexander Nikolov, and the Ministry of Environment and Water participated with a message to the participants. Sectoral analyzes were also included in the program. On one of the days, the discussion on the Green Deal and its impact on energy was led by Slavcho Neikov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Energy Management and member of the Advisory Council at the Diplomatic Institute. He, in his capacity as editor-in-chief, also presented the new edition of the Diplomatic Institute on Energy and Climate Diplomacy, which is in English. It contains extremely up-to-date texts by 11 leading Bulgarian and foreign experts, representatives of the academic community.
The main focus of the articles in the publication are the perspectives and challenges facing the energy transition in the region of South-Eastern Europe, against the background of geopolitical turmoil and the war in Ukraine, energy security in the region and opportunities for EU cooperation with the countries of the Caspian region and the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as the role of public-private partnerships in achieving the goals of the European Green Deal and the future of coal regions.
The authors of the publication are Alexander Nikolov, Minister of Energy, Arthur Lorkowski, Director of the Energy Community; Konstanza Rangelova and Martin Vladimirov, energy experts at the Center for the Study of Democracy; Prof. Dr. Atanas Georgiev, Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of Sofia University; Nadezhda Kokotovich, director of the Brussels Energy Club; Victoria Petrova and Yonka Duneva, diplomatic officers in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Olivier Marquet, president of AES Bulgaria; Tim Yeo, chairman of the New Nuclear Watch Institute; Ahmad Khumbatov, an energy expert at the Institute for Development and Diplomacy (IDD) at ADA University in Baku; Nedko Kosev, PhD student at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of Sofia University; and Dr. Rumyana Grozeva, Executive Director of the Agency for Regional Economic Development in Stara Zagora.