Bulgaria has no plans to abolish wind farms built within the Natura 2000 Network of protected species habitat sites in a way that may contravene EU regulations, which has made the country approach the Commission on the issue, deputy Environment Minister Evdokia Maneva said last week.

The government will seek to recoup the violations by implementing other measures or adding other sites to the eco network in order to protect biodiversity, Maneva told deputies of the parliament's ecology committee.

The European Commission (EC) has launched two infringement procedures against Bulgaria, the one concerning the construction of a dozen wind generators in the Kaliakra zone without the necessary ecological assessments.

The second prosecution is related to the country's erroneous policy of treating the entire nature-protected network by disregarding the overall impact of building a vast number of investment projects at a particular site.

The discussion in parliament was instigated by the prolonged conflict between eco warriors and renewable energy investors in northeastern Bulgaria, in particular the northern Black Sea Cost.

Since the area is a migration bird corridor, the site will be probably determined as a risk point in the national renewable energy plan by 2020, Nikolay Nedyalkov, head of Natura 2000 department at the Ministry, said.

Risk areas will signal future investors that their green power projects may not be granted permission or be thoroughly amended, he added.