Yesterday’s exchange between Russia’s president and Bulgaria’s prime minister reopened the subject of the gas pipeline that never was. The international project with Russia and Italy in the leading roles was supposed to deliver Russian gas to Central and Western Europe using a pipeline running along the Black Sea bed via Bulgaria, skirting volatile Ukraine. A string of Bulgarian experts and politicians readily took up the endeavor. Bulgarians have not forgotten the icy winter of 2009, when the Moscow-Kiev gas war cut off the country’s gas supplies.

At the annual meeting with the press yesterday, President Vladimir Putin stated he was amazed at the “gutless” position of the Bulgarian government which, for reasons unknown, had ignored the national interests and scrapped the South Stream project. In Putin’s words, Moscow had intended to invest EUR 3 billion in construction and jobs in Bulgaria and once the gas pipeline was up and running, Sofia would receive EUR 400 million a year from transit fees. Premier Borissov’s answer was not late in coming. From Brussels, where he is taking part in the EU summit, Borissov retorted that Vladimir Putin knew very well that the project had been halted because being a loyal member of the EU, Bulgaria observed all sanctions put in place as well as the stipulations of the third energy package.

So, who put a spanner in the South Stream works? Let us go back to some of the facts. At the beginning of June 2014, US ambassador to Sofia Marcie Ries said USA was concerned that the timing was wrong for doing business as usual with Russia. The diplomat advised Bulgarian companies not to do business with companies or persons affected by the US sanctions imposed in connection with Russia’s annexation of Crimea – the Russian Stroytransgaz commissioned with the construction of South Stream being one of the companies blacklisted. Support for ambassador Ries was demonstrated by three US senators – John McCain, Christopher Murphy and Ron Johnson – who came to Bulgaria specifically to meet and talk to then Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski. After their meeting, Oresharski told reporters Bulgaria was unilaterally scrapping its involvement in the pipeline project. The formal reason he adduced was that consultations with Brussels had to be conducted. But the logical question arises: why weren’t these consultations held before any work on the project had been started?

Now Borissov has been talking about a Balkan gas hub on Bulgarian territory, about diversifying gas supplies, about interconnectors with Turkey and Greece, about developing our own gas fields as ways to be rid of the country’s dependence on Russian gas. But here too several simple questions arise. First, when will these hubs, interconnectors etc., be operational and start reducing Bulgaria’s almost 90 percent dependence on Russian gas? Next year, five years from now, ten? What do we do until that time? Just in passing – Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak stated in November that he had no intention of providing gas for Bulgaria’s hub. And second – once we are free of dependence on Moscow how much are we going to pay the new suppliers per cubic meter of non-Russian gas? And finally – why is it, seeing as Moscow has got Europe in its oil grip and we must break away as soon as we can, that work is currently underway to extend Nord Stream so as to have Russian gas, in large quantities, reach Germany directly?

For better or for worse, whatever diversifications may be contemplated, Europe has no choice in the foreseeable future, but to get gas from Russia. Experts estimate that Europe’s average dependence on Russian gas is and will probably remain at around 50 percent. So, it is perhaps time Bulgarian politicians looked to national interests and be wary of getting involved in the geostrategic jousts of the big players in international politics.

English version: Milena Daynova