Slap in the middle of vacation season,this week,Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras paid a visit to Sofia. The visit was planned for June, but for reasons unknown only took place now. Yet it seems to have been worth waiting for, because the third joint sitting of the cabinets of Bulgaria and Greece held during the visit has buoyed up bilateral relations after a relative lull that lasted four years.

The first joint cabinet sitting was in 2010, the second – in 2012. Interestingly, at all three joint sittings Bulgaria was represented by the same Prime Minister – BoykoBorissov, whereas Greece was represented by three different premiers – Georgios Papandreou, Antonis Samaras and now – Alexis Tsipras.

The four-year pause between the second and the third sitting is due most of all to the economic crisis. As Alexis Tsipras said, it affected Greece more than it did Bulgaria. During those two years both countries were affected by the refugee crisis and again Greece more than Bulgaria. During their talks in Sofia, the prime ministers of the two countries stated how pleased they were that the third crisis sweeping across the world – the security crisis – had passed the two countries by, adding they hoped this would not change.

One of the reasons why there was a four-year long lull in the bilateral dialogue are probably the considerable differences in the political orientation of the governments in Sofia and in Athens – the Bulgarian government is described as rightwing-conservative whereas the Greek government is radical leftwing. As Prime Minister Borissov put it however, though they may belong to different political families, the two governments are “unquestionably of one mind in all critical spheres” and have always supported one another in times of crisis.

As expected, the focus during the talks in Sofia was on economic matters and, more specifically, cooperation in energy and infrastructure. A project was discussed on transporting natural gas to Bulgaria from the Greek port of Alexandroupolis, where a liquefied natural gas terminal is to be constructed. The Bulgarian side, which wants to be involved in the terminal’s construction sees the project as being linkedwith the gas interconnector between the two countries and thinks it should be built close to the interconnector. These views are not new, but they resurfaced after the market tests of the Bulgarian-Greek interconnector showed the demand for its utilization exceeded the project capacity.

Yet what probably drew public attention most was the stated plan to build a fast railway line between the Bulgarian port Bourgas and the Greek Alexandroupolis. This idea is not new either, but during Tsipras’ visit it was elaborated upon and supplemented with projects for building two logistics centres. The project for a railway line linking the Black with the Aegean Sea is a promising one, all the more so that the Greek side is working on its own rail line between Thessaloniki and Alexandroupolisbut also because the Bulgarian line is interoperable with the Greek railways as part of the track on its territory is, to all intents and purposes complete with only the Karnobat-Bourgas section yet to be finished off. These ideas will be finalized in September at the level of transport ministries and maritime and railway administrations with the idea that the project will be submitted for financing under the Juncker plan. The chronic roadblocks at the border between the two countries by protesting Greek farmers is another problem that will be left for the autumn. Settling it is no small matter, as last winter the blockades engendered tensions between Sofia and Athens, including threats by Bulgarian haulers that they would retaliate by putting up roadblocks of their own. After meetings by the Greek authorities with farmers and trade unions the problem is expected to be resolved, again in September. The Bulgarian side on its part promised to keep dam reservoirs on Bulgarian territory 80 percent full so as to prevent flooding in Greece caused by Maritsa River. In the meantime, Bulgaria will be working on its early warning systems.

English version: Milena Daynova