Environmental activists offered constructive criticism for Bulgaria's official Energy Strategy, speaking before a public discussion to held at Bulgaria's Parliament Monday, reports Dnevnik.bg.

The Energy Strategy is an official document outlining Bulgaria's priorities in the field up to 2020. It was developed by the Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism and first publicly presented at the Ministry in June.

At Monday's discussion, which brought together MPs, energy expert, environmentalists and other stakeholders, environmentalists voiced both criticism against specific points in the Strategy and overall concerns about the logic of the document.

No environmental organization in Bulgaria would approve the extraction of shale gas, it was stated. Eco activists said that boring with the help of chemicals, which is used in that novel technique poses grave environmental risks and can destroy both wildlife and agricultural lands. Last week American ambassador to Bulgaria introduced the bid of US company Chevron to drill for shale gas in north-eastern Bulgaria – a region with many protected areas, famed as a habitat for a vast number of migratory and non-migratory birds. Later the same week the Bulgarian energy minister announced one more bid to prospect for shale gas in the area.

Environmentalists also disapproved of the construction of the projected Belene NPP, which according to them would be useless given Bulgaria's electricity needs. They stressed that a thorough assessment of any favorable economic profitability of the project is yet to be done. Activist from the Za Zemyata (For the Earth) and Environment and Agriculture foundations also said that all local communities, except Belene municipality, are also against the project.

Eco activists were also critical about “too many” priorities in the Strategy, saying they could find 27 priorities in a document just 38 pages long. Representatives of WWF Bulgaria said that Bulgaria should concentrate on 4 or 5 main areas that should make up the strategy, in order to be able to clearly set out a plan for sustainable development. The strategy should also be supplemented with a macroeconomic impact analysis, a cost-benefit analysis and a social impact analysis.

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