Bulgaria is going to receive part of the five billion euro that the European Union had set aside to tackle the global financial crisis in order to deal with the effects of the cutoff of gas supplies as a result of the Russia-Ukraine price dispute, the Government Information Service reported Wednesday night.
This became clear from a telephone conversation Wednesday night between the Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev and his Czech counterpart Mirek Topolanek, whose country is now the rotating EU Presidency.
The EU money will be used for completing the so called "interconnection," i.e. connecting Bulgaria's gas transit network with the networks of Greece and Romania.
Earlier on Wednesday Bulgaria's President Georgi Parvanov announced that the National Security Council had agreed the country had to be connected with the Turkey-Greece-Italy gas transit pipeline, which required the construction of 70 kilometers of pipeline.
The Czech PM has informed Stanishev that the restoration of the Russian gas supplies for Bulgaria were a central theme of EU's negotiations with the Russian Federation and the Ukraine.
Topolanek also told his Bulgarian counterpart that EU's solidarity with Bulgaria, which was suffered the most from the termination of the Russian gas supplies for Europe, would be a major topic during the meeting of the Energy Ministers of EU members states scheduled to take place on Monday.
Bulgaria's Prime Minister Stanishev also telephoned with the Bulgarian EU Commissioner Meglena Kuneva Wednesday night. Kuneva informed the PM that the idea about independent monitoring of the gas transit that was put forth by Bulgaria had been fully adopted by the European Commission.
At 3:30 a.m. local time (0130 GMT) Tuesday morning, all natural gas supplies for Bulgaria and the adjacent Balkan countries were cut off at the Ukraine-Romania border without any explanations. Bulgaria's natural gas consumption had been cut by two thirds as the Russian gas supplies were terminated, and the country had to rely only on its reserves at the Chiren Storage Facility.
As a country which deeply depends on natural gas with more than90 percent gas supplied by Russia, Bulgaria was faced with an serious gas crisis.
Source:Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article