阿塔纳斯·乔治耶夫：新形势下中国与中东欧国家能源合作的新机遇

亲爱的毛艳华教授，亲爱的同事们，我很高兴从保加利亚历史最悠久的索非亚大学向你们致以亲切的问候。我的报告主题是：在当前全球面临多重挑战以及欧洲政策深入推进的背景下，中国与中东欧国家之间的能源合作呈现新的机遇。

So we are currently in a stage where the European Union is trying to reinvent itself. Maybe you all know about the Draghi Report, a report written about a year ago by the former Italian politician Mario Draghi, who presented a number of challenges and some solutions after the review of the European economy and its challenges. Unfortunately, some of the challenges have been exacerbated during these periods, but also there are some opportunities to be explored in Bulgaria. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe are well positioned to be part of the solution and not just part of the problem. The European Green Deal, which is a very complex set of policy in place, is still valid. The European Union is trying to decarbonize its economy through the decarbonization of crucial sectors like the energy or transportation, agriculture, buildings, etc. And this makes the challenge even tougher because some of the good conditions that have been present, the formulation of this policy more than five years ago are currently not there, we don't have so much cheap energy now. The investment environment is not so good anymore. But this also means that there are opportunities for investment coming from other parts of the world and not explicitly from the traditional trade partners.

欧盟正处于自我重塑的关键阶段。一年前，意大利前总理马里奥·德拉吉的《德拉吉报告》，全面评估了欧洲经济现状及其面临挑战，并提出一系列应对方案。尽管过去一年中部分挑战进一步加剧，但包括保加利亚在内的中东欧国家依然蕴含巨大潜力，有望成为解决方案的重要部分。欧洲绿色协议旨在推动能源、交通、农业和建筑等关键行业实现脱碳。然而，与五年前政策制定之初相比，当下环境已发生显著变化，低成本替代能源的可获得性下降，投资环境也不如从前有利。然而，这一变化同时为来自非传统贸易伙伴的投资打开了空间。

Also, we have still the same challenge of the large share of fossil fuels in the economy. As you can see here, all the countries in the European Union are still heavily reliant on coal, oil and gas. There are some successful stories, but they are not enough to overthrow the fossil fuels on their position in the European energy balance. So one of the main opportunities here is new investment and innovation related to carbon is energy solutions, which could be in the more traditional domains like solar and wind, but also in other innovative places. And again, there are some very good examples, usually related to hydrogen, geothermal of other traditional renewables, whereas the new types of renewables are still not very fast to penetrate. There have been reports related to this issue by some industrial associations like Wind Europe calling for more coordinated action for the support of renewables like wind, solar batteries that could help the integration into the energy system. And the countries in Central and Eastern Europe are actually quite fast. Bulgaria is one specific example of integrating these new types of electricity sources. This is extremely valuable when these countries are well connected to their neighbors. Again, like the Bulgarian case, still the fossil dependence of the energy sector in the economy, it also means that a lot of energy is imported.

欧盟成员国仍普遍高度依赖煤炭、石油和天然气等化石燃料。尽管有一些能源转型的成功案例，但尚不足以改变化石能源在能源结构的主导地位。因此，推动与碳减排相关的投资与创新成为当前的重要方向。这些投资既涵盖太阳能、风能等相对成熟的领域，也延伸至氢能、地热能及其他新兴技术。然而，新型可再生能源的渗透速度仍相对缓慢。欧洲风能协会等组织发布报告，呼吁加强政策协调，以支持风能、太阳能等可再生能源的发展。值得关注的是，中东欧国家在能源转型方面进展显著，例如保加利亚在新型能源整合方面取得重要突破。

European Union is devoted to decreasing the level of fossil fuels combined with better management of energy security and the security of energy supply and at the same time fostering competition for new smaller producers of energy to get into the market. Again, as for the Central and Eastern European countries, they have some advantages because some of the main investments, like in Bulgaria and Romania, have been exactly in the energy sector in this subsection, the specific policy in place regarding EU is targeted towards diminishing dependence on fossil fuels.

欧盟正通过多项举措降低对化石燃料的依赖，强化能源安全与供应保障机制，促进市场竞争，吸引中小型能源供应商。上述目标均得到专项投资基金支持。中东欧国家例如保加利亚和罗马尼亚也成为吸引大量投资关注的重要区域。

Part of the energy transition of technology is the industrial development of green technologies. There have been some innovations that have made their way toward industry production, but combined with some new regulations related to sustainability in some countries. So still, Europe is dependent on imported technologies. We can see here that, of course, China is a leader in this field. One of the possible ways is to cooperate between China and Central and Eastern European countries, by fostering investment related to production of decarbonization technologies inside the European Union, which could be very valuable.