Predisent Radev calls on MPs to check what gas Bulgaria imports and from where
I deliberately waited for the hysteria about Botas to reach its apogee to see the effect of incompetent and hypocritical treatment of a complex and important issue for our energy security. I call on the Members of the Parliament, with the same zeal with which they attacked the Botas contract, to examine why the capacity under this contract remains unused - for domestic consumption and for sales abroad. A thorough check should be carried out from where and what gas we import, President Rumen Radev said.
According to him, many of the MPs do not like the truth.
"When they were in power, they stopped the contract with Gazprom and declared that we would never import Russian gas again. Appropriate measures were put in place, then came the caretaker government of Donev and there was no gas - only one billion cubic meters from Azerbaijan. The only way of supplying the remaining missing quantity to guarantee annual consumption - around two billion cubic metres - was by supplying liquefied gas. Hence the political breakthrough with Turkey - gaining access to all 5 of their LNG terminals. The government of Donev announced tenders. Only that the parties that are supposedly at war with Putin, when they came back to power, instead of finalizing these tenders and importing liquefied gas, returned to their favourite activity of importing Russian gas en masse through intermediaries," Radev added.
He stressed that last year Bulgaria imported 1.7 billion cubic meters of such gas. That is why, under the Botas contract, this capacity remains unused, he said.
"Instead of selling through this capacity and Bulgaria profiting, they accepted this absurd energy contribution, which destroyed Bulgaria's credibility as a partner and scratched us as a potential gas supplier. The likelihood that the contract to transport gas from Russia via Ukraine to Europe will not be renewed from early next year is huge. Then, suddenly, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and other countries will be in dire need of new sources and routes for gas, and the contract with Botas could be extremely profitable. For Bulgaria to win, competence and national interests must be placed above partisan and personal ones," Radev noted.
