With a spectacular and lightning-fast parliamentary action on Tuesday evening Delyan Dobrev in a combination with DPS tried to completely stop the import of Russian oil in Bulgaria from the first days of August. The MP submitted a draft decision, which he distributed to MPs from the budget committee in print at around 1pm on Tuesday, to end the derogation that Bulgaria has made in the EU so that it can continue importing Russian oil until December 2024. After pushback from “Continuing the Change-Democratic Bulgaria”, BSP and others the action ultimately failed, at least for now.
With a similar approach, at the end of last week, in a matter of days, the parliament gave carte blanche to terminate the 35-year concession of Lukoil on the port of Rosenets.
Arguing that the refinery is profiting off the backs of Bulgarian citizens and the economy in order to fund Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, Delyan Dobrev asked parliament to decide that Bulgaria would take action to end the derogation within 7 days from the promulgation of the law on the state budget. The motion was brought as a surprise, literally “on foot”, during the second reading of Budget 2023 in the finance committee chaired by Yordan Tsonev from DPS.
Because of him, the deputies had to refocus from the disputes over the financial plan of the state to heated discussion on the proposed emergency ban on the import of Russian oil. They turned out to be the most ardent defenders of Dobrev’s lyrics MPs from DPS Yordan Tsonev and Petar Chobanov. Chobanov is still an MP, although he is expected to be elected deputy governor of the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) tomorrow morning.
“The only ones who won were Lukoil and Litasco. Bulgaria and the Bulgarian consumer did not win a single penny. About 2 billion euros were taken by Lukoil and Litasco.” It is high time to take this scam from “Lukoil” and “Litasco”, Delyan Dobrev defended his lyrics.
In the Power System Security Fund not a single le has been importedin from January until now from deductions from “Lukoil” due to the high selling price of fuels, he added. According to him, if last year the company charged Bulgarians’ bills with BGN 1 per liter of gasoline or diesel, now the “profit” in question is about BGN 0.50 – 0.60 In addition, the company did not pay tax on its excess profit this year. Dobrev also said that according to information from the Bulgarian Oil and Gas Association, Lukoil imports Russian oil at a price that is only 1 cent lower than that of Brent, which is to the detriment of the Bulgarian consumer.
Yordan Tsonev several times “Honestly” explained that the purpose of the quick fix is “to kick the lobbies of Lukoil” in the administration, since since December 5 nothing is done in the direction of the refinery contributing more to the Bulgarian economy and budget.
Petar Chobanov commented that there should be consequences for the refinery from the fact that it does nothing to reduce its dependence on Russian oil, which anyway will not be able to be imported after December 2024. If we assume that before the war the ratio of Russian/non-Russian oil imported by Lukoil was about 50/50, then last year it probably reached 85/15 in favor of Russian oil, and now it is probably at the same levels , which means that no smooth transition at all towards liberation from Russian oil, Chobanov explained.
“I don’t know what the colleagues imagine, but in fact it is proposed that Bulgaria ask the EC to punish it. This is amazing, there is no such people. I’m just mad because it contradicts the Bulgarian interest”, however, Rumen Gechev from BSP countered. Toshko Yordanov from ITN pointed out that they started with “Rosenets” first and that he will follow with interest who will be the next concessionaire of the port.
The strongest resistance to the DPS action was given by Delyan Dobrev Finance Minister Asen Vassilev and his colleague from the PP Venko Sabrutev, who tried to push a “compromise” proposal to oblige the government to first prepare an analysis on the subject within a month instead of directly ending imports.
“We will support an early termination of the derogation, but not at the back of the Bulgarian consumer. Our proposal is that the SC prepare a report and submit it to the National Assembly to see how the termination of the derogation would be affected.” he said.
While Sabrutev was trying to push his proposal as deputy chairman of the budget committee, temporarily replacing Yordan Tsonev, the deputy from the DPS interrupted him, took the chairman’s function and ordered that he, and not Sabrutev, would put the individual proposals to a vote. Eventually none of them accepted and Tsonev announced that they cannot be put to a vote in the plenary hall because are not entered in the standard order and are rejected from the budget committee.
2023-07-25 18:21:12
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