Deputy Minister Denitsa Nikolova: Energy Efficiency and Modern Urban Transport Are Key for the Improvement of the Environment and the Quality of Life

Deputy Minister Nikolova distinguished the municipalities laureates in the categories “Sustainable Mobility” and “Energy Efficiency of the Buildings” in the competition “Ecomunicipality 2017”.

The projects for integrated urban transport in the big towns and the measures for energy efficiency, implemented by the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works with funds from the budget and the EU exert the biggest impact over the improvement of the environment, the cleanness of the air and the enhancement of the quality of life. This was declared by the Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Public Works Denitsa Nikolova, who together with the Ambassador of France in our country – His Excellency Éric Lebédel distinguished the municipalities laureates in the categories “Sustainable Mobility” and “Energy Efficiency of the Buildings” in the edition of the competition “Ecomunicipality 2017” this year. It is conducted for the second consecutive year by the Embassy of France in Bulgaria, and the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works is one of the partners of the initiative, contributing to the enhancement of the awareness of the Bulgarian municipalities on the subject-matters related to the sustainable town. The municipalities of Samokov – for the built up 10 km of cycle paths and a project for encouragement of the use of electric vehicles, and Burgas – for its projects for “Integrated Urban Transport” and “Integrated Model for Management and Control of the Public Transport” received the prizes in category “Sustainable Mobility”. The prizes for “Energy Efficiency of the Buildings” were awarded to the Municipalities of Smyadovo and Gabrovo because of the multitude of successful projects and initiatives for energy efficiency.

Deputy Minister Nikolova underlined the significance of preservation of the surrounding area and called for more efforts by the institutions and the society in measures for improvement of the climatic conditions and reduction of the harmful impacts. According to her in the last few years the Bulgarian municipalities have made a lot of steps to improve the quality of life in the populated areas. “We matured a lot in the course of the years in our approach to the environment and the area surrounding us. If at the beginning of our membership in the EU our main priority was the search of financing to cover certain deficits in different infrastructure, to attain effect for the towns so that they could develop, nowadays we are speaking about not only modernizing and replacing the public urban transport but how many harmful emissions we would save from that in the town”, Denitsa Nikolova indicated.

According to her Bulgaria has already passed its way with regard to the ecological development and showed as an example the plans for urban development, in which the replacement of the motor vehicles by alternative methods of movement, the expansion of the green areas, the construction of parts and children’s grounds are more and more frequently spoken about. “The Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works puts a lot of efforts with regard to the support of the policy for ecological environment”, Deputy Minister Nikolova also said and pointed out that large-scale projects for the sustainable urban mobility for improvement of the traffic, the reduction of the harmful emissions and development of alternative variants for movement are realized during the programme period up to year 2020 with European financing. She indicated as significant in this respect the investment for integrated urban transport of Sofia, which provided good results for the improvement of the quality of the air. The measures for energy efficiency of public and multi-family residential buildings also provide a great contribution to living environment of quality.

The Minister of Environment and Water Neno Dimov, the Mayor of Sofia Yordanka Fandakova, Mayors, representatives of the companies sponsors of the competition and so on were amongst the official guests at the event.