site.btaDemocratic Bulgaria Demands Clarification of BOTAS Deal Remark

The leaders of the Democratic Bulgaria (DB) coalition asked on Wednesday what Progressive Bulgaria (PB) Floor Leader Petar Vitanov meant by saying that the suspension of the BOTAS contract was part of a "major diplomatic furore" involving Turkiye. They raised the question during a joint briefing in Parliament.

On July 6, following talks between Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, Bulgaria's state-owned gas supplier Bulgargaz and Turkiye's BOTAS signed a protocol suspending their gas supply agreement for 15 months. During this period, Bulgaria will pay, under improved commercial terms, only for the transmission capacity it actually uses rather than the whole capacity it has booked.

DB's Radan Kanev said on Wednesday that Vitanov made the remark during the Panorama weekly political talk show of Bulgarian National Television last Friday. "We believe the governing majority owes the public an explanation of what this 'major diplomatic furore' means and exactly which agreements with the Republic of Turkiye are part of it," Kanev said.

He believes that Vitanov's statement "is part of a broader problem of profound lack of transparency in foreign policy and in the foreign policy commitments undertaken by the current government."

DB's Bozhidar Bozhanov said that during the day's parliamentary vote on the deployment of US military aerial refuelling aircraft at Bezmer Air Base, the government failed to answer whether this was part of another "furore", another deal, possibly involving Lukoil, and whether the derogation allowing Bulgaria to continue receiving petroleum products from Lukoil was linked to the government's decision.

"Our appeal is not to pursue a transactional approach, because Bulgaria's national interest does not lie in bargaining with one party or another, but in working together with all European countries to build the European Union into a genuine geopolitical centre," Bozhanov said.

"Unfortunately, what PB is doing is exactly the opposite – it is trying to undermine the European consensus," he added.