Bulgaria's Foreign Minister Pledges to Implement South Stream Project

Bulgarian Foreign Minister Kristian Vigenin has pledged that Bulgaria will do everything within its power to implement the South Stream project.

“There is a total agreement in Bulgaria on the matter – not only within the authorities, but also between the opposition and the ruling parties,” Vigenin said in an exclusive interview for the Russian state wire service ITAR-TASS. “For us South Stream is an important project.”

In his words, “in spite our wish to help Ukraine to stabilize, we see that the situation there will not calm down soon.”

“Bulgaria and some other EU member states should not be the hostages of Ukraine’s instability,” Vigenin said.

“Therefore, the interests of European citizens, including Bulgarians, should come first. We will do everything within our power to have the South Stream project implemented,” Vigenin stressed.

According to him, it was true that the big problem of Bulgaria and several other EU member states is that nearly 100% of the natural gas they use is Russian and it was important to provide alternative sources, but South Stream offered another advantage – an alternative route for Russian gas. 

“This is why, if we talk of energy security, for us it is important that Russian gas comes to Bulgaria independently of other transit countries,” Vigenin noted. “From this point of view, the value of this project for Bulgaria is very big and this is why we shall do everything possible to realize this project.”

Last week the EU announced that it no longer considers South Stream a priority and the EU Parliament passed a resolution that the project be stopped.

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