Analyst: Bulgarian Energy Policy Is Strategically Inept

Ognyan Minchev (1L) and other participants in a panel on "Energy and Politics" organized by the Department of Political Science at Sofia University. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria's energy policy systematically goes against global trends and will prove to the detriment of the country, argued political scientist Ognyan Minchev.

Minchev spoke Saturday in a conference on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Department of Political Science at Sofia University.

"What is going on in Bulgaria is extremely important, and I think negative, for it goes against processes that have been developing for years and that will guarantee the success of other countries," stated Prof. Minchev, himself a faculty member of the department.

According to him, the energy sector in Bulgaria is headed towards "ultra-concentration and ultra-centralization" at a time when the key directions in Europe are diversification and unbundling.

"What is more, concentration and centralization point toward the dependency not only of Bulgaria's energy sector, but also on the overall economic system of the country on Russia," said Minchev.

He argued that ties with Russia are not negative as such, but become so given what he sees as attempts on the part of Russia to continue ensuring for itself a "classical imperial rule" over parts of the world it sees as its sphere of influence.

Minchev stressed that energy policy is not only of sector significance, but is bound to affect the overall outlook of Bulgaria's development.

Friday and Saturday Sofia University marks 25 years of the creation of its Department of Political Science back in 1986, which is the first department in the discipline in Bulgaria.

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