A new Warsaw Pact

Several ex-communist states recently agreed on a pact against the EU's climate and energy policy. The daily newspaper Dnevnik compares this with the Warsaw Pact: "What has led ... these states to reach out their hands to each other? ... The reality of the situation is that the energy efficiency of these ... nations is embarrassingly low. Their expenditure of energy is above all a waste of energy and has nothing to do with energy efficiency. The problems ... have many causes: socialist lethargy, political pigheadedness, a lack of strategic ingenuity, Eastern European provincialism and of course the economic interests of the electricity producers. For to a large extent they rely on coal to produce energy (Poland generates 92 percent of its electricity from coal, Slovakia 42 percent and Bulgaria 45 percent). Coal produces the largest amounts of carbon dioxide emissions. ... This energy inefficiency claims the lives of tens of thousands of people each year and sinks real income. The solution to this concealed tragedy ... [lies in] increasing energy efficiency in people's homes."    

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