Cooperative Transition of Polish and Bulgarian Coal Regions

Coal mining regions are the laboratories of transition to climate neutrality. In Bulgaria and Poland, the path towards a net zero economy proceeds reluctantly as coal mining regions are traditionally anxious about facing a serious economic downturn as a result of phasing out coal. However, successfully creating new climate-friendly decent jobs in former coal regions serves as a strong argument for advocates of climate neutrality pushing their governments towards more ambitious climate goals. Hence, building a strong coalition around regional cooperative job-creating strategies involving trade unions, local governments, and climate movements in a participatory process of coming up with climate-friendly social innovations contributes significantly to winning support for the European Commission’s (EU) climate ambitions.

Marek Lussa, Mateusz Piotrowski, Carmen Struck, Krassimira Dimitrova, Photo: ©Dorota Bentke | Europe, a Patient Association

To overcome these obstacles, the project engaged local governments, representatives of trade unions and climate organisations, and coal regions’ experts in crafting a concrete policy proposal addressing the threat of structural unemployment and the collapse of regional demand. To achieve this objective, the project supported these stakeholders in drafting cooperative job-creation strategies for developing strong coalitions. Additionally, it spreads these strategies among key target groups using media channels they trust to drive forward a cooperative transition. In the long-term, the Cooperative Transition project contributes to forming a multi-perspective, informed, and mobilised coalition that is supporting Just Transition in the process of creating job strategies for Bulgarian and Polish coal regions – hence also diminishing the threat of anti-climate policy and anti-EU radicalisation.

• Creating new jobs: The project developed strategies to create new jobs, which are already being implemented locally: Youth centres in Pernik and Kyustendil actively involve young people in sustainable projects. In eastern Poland, two co-operatives of former miners have been set up to create new jobs outside the coal sector and are now financed by the EU Just Transition Fund. 
• Shaping a just transformation in coal regions: The strategy papers, surveys and economic analyses developed in the project serve political decision-makers as a central basis for the sustainable transformation of the coal regions. In this way, the project helps to reduce social division and radicalisation tendencies and to make the transition to a climate-neutral future stable, inclusive and economically viable.