/ world today news/ The losses from the shutdown of “South Stream” for Bulgaria are obvious. They are not only economic, they are also geopolitical and political. This is how former Energy Minister Rumen Ovcharov commented on yesterday’s news, which Russian President Vladimir Putin announced from Ankara after his meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The losses of 400 million dollars is a rather underestimated amount, if we calculate the possible transit of 63 billion through Bulgaria based on the current transit fee that Russia sends for the transit to Turkey, the amount is about 600 million dollars per year, Ovcharov pointed out.
The former energy minister noted that “none of those who worked on the project said what this transit fee was projected to be and there was a pretty big mix of numbers going around that for 22 years we would get nothing.” But the losses for Bulgaria are obvious, he believes.
“If 30% of the transit of Russian natural gas goes through Bulgaria, won’t Russia be dependent on our country?” asked the former energy minister, explaining that “the way for Bulgaria to ensure energy independence is through mutual dependence”.
According to him, these 63 billion will go through Turkey. We become a territory that will not transit for others, but what has been transiting until now will not transit either.
Ovcharov does not accept the thesis, expressed by Martin Dimitrov and others, that this is a kind of hand-wringing and playing by Putin.
“Obviously, the GERB government with the support of Martin Dimitrov will go down in history with the destruction of three huge infrastructure projects, through which Bulgaria could not only get out of the economic crisis, but could also be a completely different country,” commented Ovcharov.
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