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Dalia Grybauskaitė: Energy Is Not Economy, It's Geopolitics!

Who says there is a lack of leaders in the EU? The president of little Lithuania proves the exact opposite. Dalia Grybauskaitė is well known at the European scene. She was the first Lithuanian European commissioner and besides was in charge of a very important portfolio in the first commission ...

Something Like an Energy Union but Rather Just Another Strategy

In the past years, in the EU, there is a new trend to talk about unions. Everything started with the banking union because this has been the greatest step toward deepening the European integration since the introduction of the single currency. It is completely justified to call it a banking unio ...

EU Has Circled Bulgaria on the Geopolitical Napkin

After so many years of controversy, pressure, disputes and uncertainties, a week ago Russia's President Vladimir Putin surprised everyone by announcing the end of the geopolitical energy project South Stream. The selection of place, the rhetorics used and the essence of his statement caused a wa ...

Energy Dependence Dooms EU to Instability

The European Commission President-elect Jean-Claude Juncker is a firm proponent of the concept of an energy union, proposed by Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk who was one of the strongest candidates to head the European Council but, as The Financial Times revealed last week, his nomination w ...

From Common Energy Market Toward Energy Union

The eurozone crisis erupted in the beginning of 2009 when it slightly started to become clear that in its foundation were instable architecture, various standards, political and financial cultures. When one after another governments started to default, while there was hysteria on the internation ...

Passing 2014 without a Single Energy Market?

The single energy market has been on the European Commission's agenda for quite some time now. It is set to be accomplished by 2014, but currently it looks as if the EU is set to miss its 2014-target. In its recent communication, published on 15 November 2012, the Commission admits that the "EU ...

Will Croatia Elope with Gazprom for South Stream?

"Croatia is under huge pressure by Russian company Gazprom and the Kremlin to sign a new bilateral agreement to regulate relations and rights related to the construction of the South Stream gas pipeline! And that before Croatia joins the EU". This is how the leading article of the Sunday edition ...

EU Resource Dependency Will Result in a Weaker Europe in the Future

Following the presentation of the national winning article of My Europe initiative - a project supported by euinside in Bulgaria - we are now glad to present the article that grabbed the second prize. The author of this paper, Bogomil Gospodinov, a student in the German Language Highschool in So ...

Locking Up the Monopoly

The authorities in Belgrade seem to be in a very interesting position these days - while awaiting to receive a EU candidate status from Brussels they did not miss to strengthen their ties with Moscow. Last week the symbol of these strong ties was a button, pressed by Serbian President Boris Tadi ...

A Single European Energy Policy?

Tightening of discipline inside and of behaviour outside. More or less this is how we can describe in one sentence the European Commission Communication on the European energy policy, published on September 7 and titled: "The EU Energy Policy: Engaging with Partners Beyond Our Borders". The prop ...

Conditioned transparency for the nuclear stress tests

The most important element of the nuclear stress tests, which will start in all the 143 nuclear power stations in the European Union on June 1st, namely transparency, is put under certain conditionality. As is written in the criteria for the inspections, agreed on Tuesday, "the reports should be ...

Between wish and can

Several problems emerged during the debate in the European Parliament on April 6 on the future nuclear stress tests and the standards for nuclear safety. What to do with those nuclear power plants that fail the tests, the future of nuclear energy in the EU in general, development of alternative ...

Nuclear stress tests for all

Ensuring the safety of nuclear power plants cannot stop at European Union's borders, which is why the Union would ask nuclear stress tests to be held in neighbouring countries and in the world at large, as well. This is stipulated in the conclusions (p. 10, art. III), adopted on March 25 by the ...

Serbia – Russia 1:1

"I don't know how would it be in Russia, but if Vladimir Putin decided to run for a president of Serbia, he will certainly win the elections". The comment of the Russian newspaper Kommersant seems to be best describing the visit of Russia's Prime Minister in Belgrade on March 23. The final resul ...

Putin in Slovenia – South Stream, Libya and a little bit of sports

South Stream, Libya and sports - those were the main topics of the talks between Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Slovenian counterpart Borut Pahor. The two met in Ljubljana on March 22 in the framework of Putin's official visit to Slovenia. As South Stream was officially the aim o ...

The EU will undertake voluntary nuclear stress tests

The natural disaster in Japan, which made the entire world nervous because of the failures in several reactors in the country, will be in the centre of the development of a set of criteria for nuclear stress tests in the European Union. This becomes clear from the conclusions of the extraordinar ...

The internal market for energy to be completed by 2014, the EU leaders called

As of January 1st 2012 EU member states will have to inform the Commission about all their new and existing bilateral energy agreements with third countries (outside the EU). This is written in the conclusions of the Energy European Council, which was held on February 4th but was overshadowed by ...

Doviđenja, Gazprom!*

Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom will no longer be the main gas supplier to Croatia. As of January 1 next year, the country will get its gas supplies from Italian gas concern ENI, which according to the official information has offered a better price and better conditions. The contract with ENI was ...

Bulgaria: The bank guarantees for Nabucco to be excluded from the budget deficit

Two months ago euinside wrote, that Bulgaria has surprisingly declared its demand the contributions for the construction of the Nabucco pipeline, due by EU countries participating in the project, to be recognised by the Union as targeted costs and not be included in the national budget deficit. ...

Diplomacy on Four Paws

The Minister of Energy Traycho Traykov was not right, saying that the big news from the Borissov-Putin meeting on November 13th was the South Stream project. In fact, the puppy named Yorgo, which Bulgarian PM Borissov gave to Putin, was central in the headlines and in the most broadcast televisi ...

European Commission: South Stream is not a European project

A day after Bulgaria and Russia agreed to create the joint project company South Stream-Bulgaria it turned out, that the European significance of the project, so persistently announced by Putin and Borissov, is to put it mildly - an illusory, even a kind of ironic. Because South Stream not only ...

Putin criticized the European energy policy from Sofia

After more than 5 hours waiting for answers about the fate of the Bulgarian-Russian energy projects, ultimately journalists left the joint press conference of Prime Ministers Putin and Borissov with few news and more questions. What we know for sure is that Bulgaria and Russia have signed a Shar ...

Waiting for Putin

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin comes to Sofia on Saturday. He will betray his habit to discuss Bulgarian-Russian energy projects over the phone, because he "had shown understanding" to the busy schedule of his Bulgarian counterpart Boyko Borissov. Who, himself has no problem with working ...

A gaffe with PM's statement about Nabucco and the budget deficit

Full and overall surprise has caused the news that Bulgaria wants the contributions for the construction of the Nabucco pipeline, due by EU countries participating in the project, to be recognised by the Union as targeted costs and not be included in the national budget deficit. As euinside wrot ...

Bulgaria wants the costs of Nabucco to be deducted from the deficit

Bulgaria wants the contributions for the construction of the Nabucco pipeline, due by EU countries participating in the project, to be recognised by the Union as targeted costs and not be included in national budget deficits. This position was expressed by Prime Minister Boyko Borissov during hi ...

Nabucco makes the first step towards finding funding

The assessment procedure of the Nabucco project has started last week. It is needed in order Europe's gas pipeline to obtain the necessary funding for its construction worth four billion euros. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), The I ...

Who will win Russia's "near abroad"?

One of the most important conditions for success in geopolitics is to know what you want. The next important condition is - to know how to get it. The vision of the European Union towards its neighbours, however, lacks both. As Katinka Barysch writes, deputy director of the Centre for European R ...

Energy coincidences (or not?)

In the season at its height, the Bulgarian Black Sea coast remained without electricity for two days. I thought about this while reading the news from a conference on energy security in the Black Sea region(July 27, Odessa, Ukraine). Of course, the link between the fall of a Bulgarian electricit ...

Rebecca Harms: stronger budgetary control in the EU, but only under stronger rules on the financial markets

I am meeting Rebecca Harms in front of the Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism, where her meeting with Minister Traycho Traykov has just ended. Harms is a Co-Chair of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance in the European Parliament and also a rapporteur on the 'Kozloduy Programme'- ...

"South stream" came to Vienna

It is clear, that gas supply for Europe will be Russian, the question is which countries the gas will pass through. This philosophy is the foundation of Russian energy invasion at the heart of Europe in the last days. Only two weeks after the construction of "Nord Stream" has started, Russia pra ...

Nord stream took off to Germany under the portrait of Catherine І

Hard work is going on in the compressor station "Portovaya". On April 9th with a symbolic welding of two pipeline segments there, officially started the construction of "Nord stream" pipeline, which a year later is supposed to connect Russia and Germany. The 1,220 km long pipe will pass through ...

Bulgaria should leave nuclear energy in the 20th century

The articles of euinside about the renewed plans of Bulgarian government to build a second nuclear power station in Belene, evoked a lot of interest and comments. Here we present to you the comment of the Greenpeace expert Jan Haverkamp. We thank him for the very detailed position on the issue a ...

Bulgaria will build gas interconnector with Serbia

A day after he signed an agreement for the construction of a gas interconnection with Greece, the Bulgarian energy minister Traycho Traykov signed in Brussels a "joint statement" for the preparation of a project for construction of gas interconnection between Bulgaria and Serbia. The document wa ...

The Commission approved 2.3 bn euro for energy projects, 45 mn are for Bulgaria

The European Commission approved the second installment from the 4 bn euro energy package, aimed to help financing 43 pipeline and electricity systems projects. With 2.3 bn euro 31 gas pipeline projects will be financed (1,390 mn euro) and 12 electricity projects (910 mn euro). This is the large ...

The speech of the American ambassador James Warlick at the energy forum in Sofia

As euinside considers the statements of the European Commissioner on energy Guenter Oettinger and of the American ambassador in Bulgaria James Warlick at the Black Sea Energy forum in Sofia as very important, this is why after we presented to you the speech of Mr Oettinger, now you can read the ...

Commissioner Guenter Oettinger 1:1

Part of the European Energy Commissioner's speech at the Black Sea Energy forum in Sofia on Tuesday was in German. Guenter Oettinger preferred his native tongue to talk about his meeting with the Bulgarian prime minister Boyko Borisov the evening before, which lasted a long time, according to Bo ...

Bulgarian energy policy: "to make the square round"

Nothing is decided until everything is decided. This saying fully describes the situation around the Belene project (for the construction of a second Bulgarian nuclear power station), for which each decision appears to be before last in the general context of the Bulgarian energy policy. And if ...

Sofia is speaking. But is Moscow listening?

Bulgaria has a problem in its relations with Russia. This became visible again around the dispute to build or not to build a second nuclear power station project, which will be financed with Russian money. If we leave aside the very reasonable rebukes towards the government that the deal is bein ...

Belletristically about Belene

Obviously the Belene project (for the construction of a second nuclear power station in Bulgaria) was caught by the Chinese curse of the interesting times. After months of silence and inaction on the subject, there is some movement in the last days. And it is definitely caused by Russia's pressu ...

A memory or a future of "Second Nuclear"

Nuclear power station construction could cause furious political, economic and purely professional disputes among energy experts. It could cause the protests of environmentalists and the support of trade unions. But can it turn into a Gordian Knot of passions, demagogy and ideology for more than ...

The Greens: with Belene Bulgaria replaces its gas dependence from Russia with a nuclear one

By allowing the construction of a Russian nuclear power station Bulgaria replaces its gas dependence from Russia with a nuclear one, commented the member of the European Parliament from the group of the Greens Rebecca Harms for euinside. She is a rapporteur on the 300 mn euro additional compensa ...

Barroso: We work for energy security and solidarity

Energy security and solidarity were among the main issues, discussed today by the Bulgarian president Gheorghi Parvanov and the president of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso. "We take this concept of solidarity extremely seriously, as we have shown during the most recent Russia-Ukrain ...

Bulgaria keeps 50% share in the Belene nuclear power station project, just in case

Russia to get a 20 percent share in Bulgaria's second nuclear power station Belene and the rest to be paid in electricity. This is the latest idea of the government in Sofia to be offered to Moscow, the minister of energy, economy and tourism Traycho Traykov said today. He added that goal number ...

Parvanov: Burssels is not worried that Belene will be constructed with Russian money

On the second day of his visit in Brussels the Bulgarian president Gheorghi Parvanov met the president of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek and the president of the European Council Herman van Rompuy. Bulgaria to have a coordinating role for the European strategy for the Balkans, Parvanov offe ...

President Gheorghi Parvanov with an important visit in Brussels

For the first time in the last 3 years and for a second time since Bulgaria is a member of the EU, the president Gheorghi Parvanov will visit Brussels. On Monday his working visit starts in Belgium and Luxembourg until February 24th. In Brussels the Bulgarian president will have meetings with th ...

Economic benefit or political compulsion?

Russia will finance the construction of Bulgaria's second nuclear power station Belene until a strategic investor is found. This is the news from Friday's mass Russian presence in Sofia. The building of more pressure started on Tuesday with a "surprising" visit of the Chairman of the Board of Di ...

Russia will finance the construction of the Belene nuclear power station

Russia will finance the work on the Belene nuclear power station project until a strategic investor is chosen. This is what became clear after the meeting between the energy ministers of Bulgaria and Russia Traycho Traykov and Sergey Shmatko. And interesting details is that it was this morning t ...

A Russian loan for the nuclear power station Belene

The short and surprising visit of the chairman of the Managing board of Gazprom Aleksey Miller in Sofia produced interesting news. The feeling of haste came firstly from the lack of any information in advance about the meetings of Miller in Bulgaria. Later the details from the talks were scarce. ...

More questions about the second nuclear power station Belene

The second Bulgarian nuclear power station Belene could prove to be the ruling party's warrant for staying in power. This is the position of the leader of the opposition Union of Democratic Forces Martin Dimitrov who is also a co-resident of the Blue Coalition. The Coalition asked the minister o ...

Bulgaria has ratified the Nabucco agreement

The Bulgarian parliament has ratified on the 3rd of February the Nabucco agreement for the building of a gas pipeline to Europe. The agreement was endorsed by 156 votes in support of the document out of 240 MPs. No one voted against. The document has been so far ratified only by Hungary but is e ...

The problems with Nabucco are due to Turkey and Azerbaijan

The main reason for the lack of progress of the Nabucco project for building a gas pipeline that will entirely bypass Russia as a natural gas supplier for Europe, is the tension between Turkey and Azerbaijan because of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. This is the explanation given in an analysis b ...

Where is Russia going?

Is no news good news? This is the question to which Sergey Aleksashenko, former deputy minister of finance of the Russian Federation and former deputy governor of the Russian central bank is trying to answer in an article for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. According to him, Russ ...

The potential of Bulgaria for production of renewable energy is 4,500 ktoe annually

The technical potential of Bulgaria for production of energy from renewables is approximately 4,500 kilo tonnes of oil equivalent (ktoe), of which the largest share has the biomass - around 36%, followed by hydroenergy - with around 31%. This is written in the forecast document, published by the ...

The Commission will give 45 mn euro for a gas interconnection between Greece and Bulgaria

The European Commission has approved financing of the gas interconnection between Greece and Bulgaria at the amount of 45 mn euro, for the interconnection between Bulgaria and Romania for 9 mn euro and financing for the construction of the Nabucco gas pipeline, the Bulgarian Ministry of Economy, ...

Traycho Traykov: When there are good projects, there is always money for them

Bulgaria will have to secure 300 mn euro from the budget when the realisation of the Nabucco gas pipeline starts with which the EU hopes to diversify its gas suppliers. The amount is 16.5% of the share Bulgaria has in the Nabucco consortium and the total amount for the project is 8 bn euro. The ...

Russia did not wait for Bulgaria for South Stream

One telephone conversation, one visit and a total change of the geo-energy landscape only several hours before the visit of the Bulgarian minister of the economy, energy and tourism Traycho Traykov in Moscow. Late last night the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev held a telephone conversation wit ...

The full text of the interview with Ivaylo Kalfin

euinside: I would, firstly, like us to talk about the energy projects in Bulgaria. There was a lot of talking before the elections and now, all of a sudden it appeared that on all projects that Bulgaria has been negotiating on, will be started anew. How would you comment on that? IVAYLO KALFIN: ...

Ivaylo Kalfin: Bulgaria should create an energy stock exchange

Bulgaria has to create as soon as possible an energy stock exchange but there is heavy resistance by the energy monopolists. This is what Ivaylo Kalfin said, former Bulgarian foreign minister and now an MEP from the group of the Socialists and Democrats, in an interview for the euinside. He chai ...

A new page in Russian-Bulgarian relations

Bulgaria and Russia have started negotiations on all mutual energy projects, agreed so far, from the very beginning and on a new basis. This is what we understood from the visit of the Russian energy minister and the accompanying delegation in Bulgaria on Friday. Sergey Shmatko came to Bulgaria ...

Concern or fear of the EU funds

There is a strange coincidence between the visit of the Bulgarian prime minister Mr. Boyko Borisov in Brussels with the main aim of securing the EU funds for Bulgaria, and the announcement of the president Mr. Georgi Parvanov that he is convening the Consultative Council for National Security on ...

The Bulgarian president fights back

A little after the president was publicly humiliated because of the ridiculous incident with his landing in Skopie to meet the relatives of the 15 Bulgarians, tragically drowned in the Ohrid lake, the president published on the website of the presidency a large and, we should admit, quite well-g ...

About the important geostrategic significance of Bulgaria

Bulgaria has always defined its politics, internal and external, based upon the mantra about its unique geostrategic significance. Yesterday's meetings in the polish city of Gdansk where some 20 world leaders gathered to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the start of WWII, demonstrated clearly ...

The first conversation of the new Bulgarian prime minister was with Erdogan

The press service of the Bulgarian government announced last night that the first telephone conversation the new Bulgarian prime minister held since assuming the post was yesterday with his Turkish counterpart Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan with whom Mr. Borisov discussed the 'Nabucco" gas pipeline pr ...

Another step forward towards common energy market of the EU

The European Commission proposed today a new regulation that would improve gathering of information about started or planned investment project in energy infrastructure. The idea is for full transparency so that a risk of infrastructure gaps can be avoided over the coming years, similar to those ...

Bulgaria will sign the agreement for "Nabucco"

The Bulgarian prime minister Sergey Stanishev will sign today the intergovernmental agreement for the construction of the "Nabucco" gas pipeline during an official ceremony in Ankara. The goal of the project is toe diminish the European dependence on Russian gas. The 3,300 km long pipe will go t ...

The South Stream agreement has been signed

The agreements with the gas companies of Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia for the construction of the "South Stream" pipeline have been signed a while ago in Sochi, ITAR-TASS news agency reported. Beside this Gazprom signed with the Italian company ENI a second annex to the Memorandum for cooperation ...

"South Stream" is among the top news in Russian media

Today's signing of the "South Stream" agreements appeared to be in the focus of the Russian media. According to the ITAR-TASS news agency with the signing of the documents the final route of the pipeline will be defined and that was a disputable issue in the last months. The beginning of the pip ...

The pressure over "South Stream" is beginning to subside

Today the agreement between Gazprom and the Bulgarian energy holding will be signed in Sochi for cooperation in the construction of the gas pipeline "South Stream" which will transit Russian natural gas through Bulgaria for Greece, Serbia and Italy. Beside this in Sochi agreements will sign the ...

"Nord Stream" is moving ahead too

While we in Bulgaria are left in dark on what's the situation around "South Stream" and what would be the participation of Bulgaria, the online media EurActiv reported that the construction of the northern alternative - "Nord Stream", which is designed to bring Russian gas directly to Germany vi ...

Tomorrow Bulgaria will sign the "South Stream" sgreement

In absolute secrecy tomorrow the Bulgarian energy holding, lead by its director and deputy minister of energy Galina Tosheva, is leaving tomorrow for Sochi to sign the agreement, negotiated during the visit of Bulgarian prime minister Sergey Stanishev in Moscow in the end of April. This was repo ...

The allegations of the President are absurd

The allegations of the president Gheorghi Parvanov that the energy dependency from Russia started before 2001, i.e. when prime minister was the opposition leader Ivan Kostov, are absurd, says Nadezhda Mihaylova. In the government of Kostov (1997-2001) she was a foreign minister and now is leadin ...

The president: Nabucco yes, but South Stream too

Less than a month after the energy summit in Sofia, organised by the president Gheorghi Parvanov and which evoked furious debates before the summit and a lot of analysis after it, today the president again requested the society to talk about the forum and to estimate it relevantly. In an article ...

"Belene" is the greatest treachery, according to Ivan kostov

"The greatest treachery to the national interest is the second nuclear power station "Belene". With its old technology, with wicked tender, with a loan from Russia, economically irrelevant. One kilowatt per hour will cost 0,16 levs. And if 7 and 8 blocks of the station "Kozlodui" are constructed ...

Kalfin: It is not important from whom and how much Bulgaria would borrow for "Belene"

It doesn't matter where Bulgaria will take a loan to build the second nuclear power station "Belene" because this loan will be paid back. It is also not important how much would cost the "South Stream" project because the rivalry for it is great. These are the words of the deputy prime minister ...

Bulgaria signs for "South Stream" and "Belene"

The documents for the participation of Bulgaria in the building of the "South Stream" project will be signed today, reported the ITAR-TASS news agency after the meeting between the prime ministers of Russia and Bulgaria, Vladimir Putin and Sergey Stanishev. The documents will be signed by presid ...

Tensely waiting for news from Moscow

Today will continue the tense waiting for news from Moscow where the prime minister Sergey Stanishev is on an official visit. Yesterday, president Dmitry Medvedev refused to meet the prime minister without any explanation but the vacuum was willingly filled by the Russian prime minister Vladimi ...

Medvedev refused to meet Stanishev, or at least it seems he refused

The Russian president Dmitry Medvedev had refused to meet with Bulgarian prime minister Sergey Stanishev. The meeting had been scheduled for today. The press office of the government reported that Kremlin had not given any particular reason for the refusal but suggested that the meeting might be ...

Bulgaria fell deeper in the energy trap

The Sofia summit - "Natural gas for Europe - security and partnership" cost a lot of efforts for the Bulgarian president Georghi Parvanov to realise this initiative and make it a significant event. It was hard because against the background of this broadly advertised initiative, the prime minist ...

Putin will not come to Sofia because Bulgaria is not ready for 'Southern Stream"

An interesting confession made the deputy prime minister and foreign minister of Bulgaria Ivaylo Kalfin at a press conference designated to the energy forum in Sofia, organised by the president Georghi Parvanov. Kalfin said that the Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin, who was almost a certain ...