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Bulgaria gives in
Sofia agrees to thrash out South Stream details
A delegation headed by Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko is set to sign a roadmap today and finalize the details of the South Stream pipeline project in Bulgaria’s Varna. In an interview with RBC TV, Director of the Institute for Energy and Finance Vladimir Feigin noted that Sofia had been trying to put European interests above Russian interests to the very end. But eventually, Bulgarian officials failed to use the environmental trump card that is so popular these days. Bulgaria’s efforts to change its involvement in the South Stream project started when a new government led by Boyko Borissov came into power in July 2009. Moscow’s response was swift: Gazprom announced that it had reached a strategic agreement with Romania and Macedonia on laying the pipe bypassing Bulgaria. Sofia was forced to tone down its reaction; no matter how close the European Union is, it is plagued by its own problems and in no rush to offer money in the wake of the crisis. Everyone is hurting for money right now. Feigin described the stance as fairly egotistic for a transit country. As he said, “Go ahead, invest in it, I won’t be the loser. Meanwhile, I bear almost no risks at all, unless we take those maybe even far-fetched environmental concerns into account.” South Stream is worth over $20bn. Its projected capacity stands at 63bn cubic meters of gas a year. Furthermore, the project is due for completion fairly soon – in 2015. It is a good catch for any transit country – all the more so since they are required to invest next to nothing, with foreign investors financing the project. It is more than just a bit strange to demonstrate stubbornness to the detriment of one’s own economy for the sake of illusory good for the European Union. Bulgaria, a new EU member, is very sensitive about the messages Brussels sends from time to time. The desire to be a European country through and through, meaning support only for European projects (Nabucco, for instance), played a dirty trick on Bulgaria, head of the Center for Global Energy Market Studies Tatyana Mitrova said. Russia has repeatedly stressed that it had always complied with its energy supply obligations, regardless of the political or economic situation it was facing. Yet, we can now see from Bulgaria’s example that Europeans are ready to make use of any excuse available to raise claims against Moscow over their energy dependence in a last-ditch attempt to bargain for concessions. Analytical department of RIA RosBusinessConsulting
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