Bulgarian Sports Minister Krasen Kralev has said that he expects that the construction of a second gondola lift in the mountain resort of Bansko will be cleared by the working group set up over the matter.

Kralev spoke in favor of the facility at a Wednesday sitting of the parliamentary committee on youth and sports.

He made clear that the working group including representatives of various government departments had to come up with a decision on the matter by February 15.

“There is no other EU country where an entire mountain has been declared a protected area. I do not know why this was done 30 years ago, but regardless of the reasons, it happened,” Kralev declared, as cited by dnevnik.bg.

Bulgaria’s Sports Minister insisted that no protected species that could not be found elsewhere lived there, stressing that declaring the Pirin Mountain a protected area had been unreasonable.

Kralev said that the authorities had made an inspection and had found that UNESCO had not prohibited construction in these areas but the ban had been introduced by Bulgaria at its own initiative.

He was adamant that a second gondola lift had to be built there, adding that Bulgaria could not develop the winter tourism segment with only 200 kilometers of ski runs.

The Sports Minister emphasized that long queues at ski lifts were bad publicity for the country.