SARAJEVO, (Reuters) – Officials announced Wednesday that about 7,000 coal miners in Bosnia will be returning to their jobs at the seven mines. The deal was reached with both the state-owned Elektroprivreda BiH and government officials on pensions and wages. This brought an end to a nine-day-long protest.

In support of their colleagues, who protested in Sarajevo last week against what they called violations of the work and pay regulations, the miners stopped working last week.

Admir Andelija of EPBiH stated at that time that power production at Tuzla’s biggest coal-fired power station was at risk due to a 10-day supply of coal. This could mean the company will have to raise electricity prices.

According to the agreement, miners will receive outstanding pensions accrued over decades. Andelija indicated that they amounted at 500 million Bosnian Marka ($288.2million). Basic salary is also included.

Andelija explained that “the quality of this agreement is not going to put at risk the operation EPBiH.”

According to him, EPBiH had reached an agreement with the Bosniak-Croat Federation (where the mines are situated) to increase the coal price by 20% starting in 2022 as per trade union requests. The price of coal would remain unchanged for next year, but there wouldn’t be any increases in the household budget.

Nermin Dzindic, Minister of Federation Industry and Energy said that the agreement was needed to enable restructuring indebted coal mining operations as part of the government’s plan to gradually switch to renewable energy and reduce the number of coal miners to just 5,200 by the end of the following several years.

(1$ = 1.72 Bosnian marka)