Why and how a municipality in Bulgaria voted for a full moratorium on wind power

Since 8 July, the municipality of Vetrino is the only one in Europe to have imposed a moratorium on all wind energy - not only industrial wind farms, but also small generators for homes. Varna's regional government along with potential investors are appealing the decision in court

Why and how a municipality in Bulgaria voted for a full moratorium on wind power

An entertainment park about history wanted to stop a 1.2 billion wind project – and then ensure that no other candidates would emerge

Since 8 July, the municipality of Vetrino is the only one in Europe to have imposed a moratorium on all wind energy - not only industrial wind farms, but also small generators for homes. Varna's regional government along with potential investors are appealing the decision in court

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You probably have never heard of Vetrino - a small municipality in Northeastern Bulgaria, close to Varna. But its name literally means "a windy place", and it is one of the smallest municipalities in the country - so much so that it does not even have its own regional town in it, only villages. So, when in 2021 the multinational company CWP Europe declared its intention to invest 1.2 billion leva (around 600 million euro) in a wind energy project in the municipality, local politicians were only expected to show at least a modicum of interest - but still this was expected nonetheless.

Instead, a year later, Vetrino has become the first municipality in Europe (and possibly the world) to implement a full-scale moratorium on any kind of wind power. Not only industrial, but even for residents who might want to install a small turbine for home use. The main reason for this is a peculiar company called Historical Park, which, as the name suggests, operates an entertainment park dedicated to Bulgarian history in one of the villages of the municipality, Neofit Rilski.

The company representatives put forward sundry specious arguments against wind energy. These ranged from the supposed non-compatibility between the tourism business and the wind turbines, to absurd claims that wind power turns the soil into desert, or that it breeds plague and could cause cancer.

It is a local story with far reaching consequences - not only because of Bulgaria's current energy woes and soaring electricity bills, but also because the moratorium might be unlawful - it has already been attacked in court by the investor in four separate cases, and by the Varna administration in an additional, fifth case.

In the beginning there were the farmers

The wind project, called Dobrotich Wind, has a long gestation. It was first announced in 2008 and was planned solely for the neighboring Valchi dol municipality (it takes its name from a village there, Dobrotich). It was, however, put on the shelf, only getting back on track as late as 2021, this time with the energy giant CWP Europe behind it. It also grew much bigger. The new project saw most of the wind generators placed in the village of Vetrino, where the investor already owns land that is amenable to its construction.

Biliana Petrova, CEO of Dobrotich wind and managing the project for CWP, says that the municipality council wanted her to talk to the citizens first, which the company did. "The public consultations were mainly attended by farmers and most of them had concerns," she says. They included the generators potentially destroying the nearby crop fields and farmers having to navigate around the propellers with their agricultural equipment. Dobrotich Wind representative, however, responded that no land would be destroyed and only 0.08% of all the usable farming land in the municipality would be used as part of the project.

This is where Suvorovo - another neighboring municipality, where a wind park has been operational for more than 10 years, enters the story. No ordinary people, or farmers in its vicinity, have faced an apocalypse after wind generators were installed there, and Dobrotich Wind used that as an argument to allay farmers' fears.

But the farmers could not be convinced and the first attempted investment was dismissed by the municipality council in January 2022 without any argumentation. This turned into the basis of the first two of the court cases - the Dobrotich Wind company took the municipality to court over the absence of any convincing arguments for the decision, and one from Katina Yordanova, owner of a stake in Dobrotich Wind, who is also the owner of the land where the generators had to be constructed. She argued that the municipality had illegally limited what she could, or could not do, with her private property.

The wind farm in the municipality of Suvorovo, neighbouring the municipality of Vetrino. The park has been in operation for over a decade and is located about 10 kilometres from the "Historical Park". However, there is neither plague nor desert in Suvorovo
Photographer: Цветелина Белутова

In the meantime, Dobrotich Wind pressed on with more discussions with the farmers, citing the Suvorovo case as an example time and again. In addition, the company proposed a 15 million leva investment program for the municipality, along with a pledge to reconstruct the roads it would use. The company also offered to rent the land for the construction for a 35-year long-term lease from the municipality and the land owners - at prices 20 times higher than the current market prices. It expected the new offer - which was sent in another letter of intent - to be gladly accepted by the municipal authorities.

But on April 15, when Biliana Petrova was making her way to the municipality for what she thought would be a successful vote approving the project, she was confronted by a street protest. Demonstrators bearing signs with captions such as "Bulgaria is for the Bulgarians", "Don't destroy the Bulgarian village", "Don't make Vetrino a desert", and others, had closed the road. Other signs compared the project to the colonization of the Americas, spreading fear that the local population would be placed in reservations.

At the center of the protest, with a megaphone in hand, was Ivelin Mihaylov - CEO of Historical Park.

Does wind power cause cancer and plague?

The angry mob opposed the project, citing reasons such as "wind power causes plague" (because generators kill birds, so there is no one left to eat the rats that spread the disease) and "wind power causes cancer" (because of the vibrations produced by the propellers). The protest went on for hours, ultimately perturbing the council members to such an extent that they once again voted against the investment proposal. The story does not end here, however - the "no" vote was not enough for the organizers, so they launched a petition for a full-scale moratorium on the development of wind-powered energy projects in the municipal area.

They gathered around 1,900 signatures - quite a significant number, considering the whole municipality consists of about 6,000 people. According to the Bulgarian citizen register authority, GRAO, however, almost a third of these signatures were invalid, including one instance of a signature from someone who was supposed to be in prison at the time of the petition. Nevertheless, on July 8 the municipality council approved the moratorium, even though the municipality's own lawyer clearly states that the act is "against a number of European directives, Bulgarian laws, and every strategic document of Vetrino." There is also another petition - in defense of the project (with about 1000 signatures as of the beginning of August), but the council chose to ignore it.

The protest is organized by people who self-identify as part of the Historical Park project. In theory, the park is little more than an amusement area, but the reality is stranger than fiction. It opened in 2019 after its creator Ivelin Mihaylov carried out a complex financing scheme involving selling shares out of the regulated Stock Market, at whatever price he and the rest of the project's executives wished. It is not clear how much money was collected through the sale of shares, but in 2019 Mr Mihaylov said the park was valued at 250 million leva, while 60 million leva had been invested already in the facility at that point. Financial data from the Bulgarian company register for 2020 showed only 500,000 leva revenue. According to the business plan set out by Mr Mihaylov in 2019, the park should have been welcoming in more than half a million people every year, but recent figures show that only 35-50,000 people have visited it.

Ivelin Мihaylov from the Historical Park says the harm from wind blades hasn't been proven because "there are a lot of things we all know, but they haven't been proven because corporations are paying"
Photographer: Надежда Чипева

Mr Mihaylov also claims that the Historical Park, as a company, has nothing to do with the protests. But Telegram chats seen by KInsights show that the main organizer of the petition is a manager in the park, while Mr Mihaylov and his wife have also partaken in the organization of the protests. Additionally, members of the same Telegram groups actively try to intimidate council members, with one person in the chat calling for "a purge" against anyone who voted in favor of the wind power project.

What makes the Historical Park so powerful in this case is not only the business they provide to the region, but also the fact that Mr Mihaylov and people close to him have bought nearly all of the land in Neofit Rilski, even though the proposed project does not envisage any generators installed there. They also promote a specific lifestyle based on their own reading of traditional Bulgarian culture, although Mr Mihaylov is also a fan of social media and is constantly live streaming himself. In an interview about the case, Mr Mihaylov also claims that he has been threatened on account of his stance, but declined to provide any evidence (he cites taped phone calls).

Last stop: the courtroom

All of this drama will be resolved in court. There are five cases already against the Vetrino municipality - four from the investors (two from the company, two from Katina Yordanova, the executive who owns the land), and one from the administration of Varna, which attacks the legality of the moratorium. The latter is perhaps the most important, because Vetrino will have to fight its own lawyer who says that what the municipality is doing is unlawful in various ways. The court is due to make a ruling within a month.

But this will probably not be the end of the story. If Vetrino manages to kick out the investor - even though a significant part of the municipality now favors the project - it will be a massive precedent. Most municipalities in Bulgaria can only dream of a 1.2 billion leva investment - that is about 100 times the annual budget of Vetrino. The implementation of the moratorium will be an even greater precedent. And to make the story ever more complicated, there is also an ultimatum - Mr Mihaylov says that if the wind generators are erected, his Historical Park will leave the town.

You probably have never heard of Vetrino - a small municipality in Northeastern Bulgaria, close to Varna. But its name literally means "a windy place", and it is one of the smallest municipalities in the country - so much so that it does not even have its own regional town in it, only villages. So, when in 2021 the multinational company CWP Europe declared its intention to invest 1.2 billion leva (around 600 million euro) in a wind energy project in the municipality, local politicians were only expected to show at least a modicum of interest - but still this was expected nonetheless.

Instead, a year later, Vetrino has become the first municipality in Europe (and possibly the world) to implement a full-scale moratorium on any kind of wind power. Not only industrial, but even for residents who might want to install a small turbine for home use. The main reason for this is a peculiar company called Historical Park, which, as the name suggests, operates an entertainment park dedicated to Bulgarian history in one of the villages of the municipality, Neofit Rilski.

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