25.10.2023
The tax that was recently levied on the importation and transportation of Russian natural gas via Bulgaria will not impact negatively European customers. The tax will affect solely Gazprom’s profits. This is what the ambassadors of the EU countries heard from Prime Minister Acad. Nikolai Denkov, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mariya Gabriel, Minister of Finance Assen Vassilev and Minister of Energy Rumen Radev.
“The European Union should not be dependent on Russian gas. It is intolerable to spend the European taxpayers’ money to finance Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Acad. Nikolai Denkov said. He recalled that a lot of work had been done in the past couple of years to diversify Europe’s gas supply sources.
A day after his visit to Vienna, the Prime Minister again stressed for the EU diplomats the reasons in favor of Bulgaria’s accession to the Schengen area. “If we were not bound the guard the borders between Bulgaria and Greece and between Bulgaria and Romania, our country will dedicate far more effort and relocate men and materiel to its borders with Türkiye and Serbia.” The Prime Minister expressed his hope that the regular meeting of the European Council in December would take the right decision for the benefit of Bulgarian and European citizens and businesses.
The Prime Minister drew attention to the fact that Bulgaria has made great progress in the field of the rule of law and that this is recognized by the country’s partners and by the European Commission.
The discussion touched, inter alia, on important issues such as the war in Ukraine, the situation in the Middle East, migration, the competitiveness of the EU and some other points on the agenda of the upcoming European Council meeting this week.
