A major legal setback has hit Bulgaria’s largest state-owned coal-fired power plant after the country’s Supreme Administrative Court permanently annulled an environmental exemption that had allowed the facility to exceed European pollution limits for years.
The ruling concerns TPP Maritsa East 2 and follows a prolonged legal battle initiated by environmental groups Greenpeace Bulgaria and For the Earth. Activists described the decision as one of the most significant environmental court victories in Bulgaria in recent years.
The court upheld an earlier judgment issued by the Administrative Court in Stara Zagora, which had previously overturned a 2018 decision by Bulgaria’s Executive Environment Agency to amend the plant’s integrated operating permit.
At the center of the dispute was a derogation that allowed the power plant to bypass EU environmental standards related to sulfur dioxide emissions. Environmental organizations argued that this exemption effectively permitted pollution levels far above legal thresholds.
According to Greenpeace Bulgaria, the plant had been allowed to emit sulfur dioxide at nearly double the legal limit and mercury at more than four times the permitted level, without a clear timeline or binding reduction measures.
In its final ruling, the Supreme Administrative Court concluded that Bulgarian authorities failed to properly assess the cumulative environmental and health impacts of the emissions. Judges also found that the exemption ignored key scientific evidence and conflicted with local air quality policies in the municipality of Galabovo.
The court further stated that the exemption did not comply with European environmental law requirements governing derogations and referenced a related judgment by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), case C-375/21, which was considered during proceedings.
The case has gone through multiple stages of litigation in recent years. In 2023, the Supreme Administrative Court had already overturned a lower court ruling due to serious procedural issues and ordered the case to be reconsidered by a different judicial panel.
