Bulgarian President: EU Energy Union to Deepen Integration

From left to right: Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete, Vice-President of European Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic and Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev. Photo: BGNES

Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev said on Monday that the establishment of an EU Energy Union will bring the level of European political and economic integration to a new level.

Plevneliev stated this during his meeting with European Commission's Vice-President Maros Sefcovic and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete, the presidential press service reports.

The Bulgarian President highlighted that the EU has to present a single position in the energy field, both within the framework of the Union and with its external partners.

Plevneliev pointed that the achievement of better energy connectivity must be a key priority of the EU energy policy and is a compulsory condition for ensuring the safety of supplies.

The Head of State reminded that Bulgaria had experienced the shortcomings of its dependency on a single supplier in the winter of 2009, when Russia cut gas supplies to Ukraine.

Plevneliev pointed to Bulgaria's vulnerability in the past decades due to the high prices of natural gas, which resulted from the lack of competition and alternative suppliers.

The Bulgarian President said that energy resources should not be used as weapons, but as goods which are traded freely on the common EU market.

Sefcovic stated that the great challenge that lay ahead of the EU member states was to rethink their established national approaches of guaranteeing energy security and to seek an effective solution at regional and EU level.

Plevneliev underlined that diversification of sources and transit routes of energy supplies is a common cause for the countries of Southeastern Europe.

He called for joint efforts on the establishment of a regional market for natural gas.

All three participants at the meeting converged on the opinion that energy efficiency is a prerequisite for improving the competitiveness of the EU economy.

Commisisoner Canete urged EU member states to make more effective use of EU Commission aid and invest in the raising of their energy efficiency.

He pointed that in contrast to large-scale energy projects, investments in energy efficiency required considerably less funding and directly affected job creation.

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