05.03.2018
The President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin congratulated Prime Minister Boyko Borissov on the occasion of the National Holiday of Bulgaria.
In a telephone conversation today, the two discussed the energy projects on the territory of our country, and Borissov informed Putin about the developments regarding the topic of the Western Balkans, on which the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union has put the focus- building transport and digital connectivity in the region, as well as the development of electricity and gas transmission infrastructure. The possibility for a meeting between the two during the Bulgarian Presidency was also discussed.
The Bulgarian Prime Minister presented his idea of developing the Belene Nuclear Power Plant project as a Balkan power plant and pointed out that this has met the support of his colleagues from the Western Balkan countries. President Putin expressed readiness for his country to engage in discussions on renewing the project.
During the conversation, the development of the Balkan gas hub and the possibilities for direct gas supply for Bulgaria under mutually beneficial conditions and full guarantees from the European Commission were discussed. In this respect, the construction of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline was also commented on, whereby the Russian President pointed out that the project was largely finalized whereas Borissov informed that the interconnector between Bulgaria and Turkey is expected to be ready on 1 June. The possibility of constructing a deviation from the Turkish Stream pipeline to reach the hub directly was also looked at.
Boyko Borissov and Vladimir Putin highlighted that the bilateral dialogue is developing well and progress is being made in bilateral relations in a number of areas in the fields of economy, trade, and tourism. It has been reported that the trade volume between Bulgaria and Russia has increased by 24% in 2017, and the tourists who visited our country are nearly 560 thousand, which is by 1.3% more than then number in 2016.
