Bulgarian Splits Widen Over Russian Pipeline

Bulgaria’s ruling Movement for Rights and Freedoms, DPS, said it disagreed with its senior coalition partner, the Bulgarian Socialist Party, over plans to continue building the South Stream pipeline, which the EU has opposed.

The European Commission opened an infringement procedure against Bulgaria on 3 June, and asked the authorities to halt construction work in the meantime.

Lyutvi Mestan, leader of the DPS, a mainly Turkish ethnic party, said that Bulgaria “shouldn’t do anything against Brussels”, and that the country should defend its national interest “in cooperation, not in confrontation” with Europe.

Mestan added that the government of Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski, elected last May, could not fulfill its mandate and called for early elections in November or December.

The announcement comes as a shock to the Socialist Party of Sergei Stanishev, who is also President of the Party of European Socialists. In spite of repeated warnings from Brussels, the party has said that the construction of South Stream would continue.

Bulgaria’s relations with the EU have deteriorated significantly in recent months over the issue of the South Stream gas pipeline.

While Prime Minister Oresharski was meeting in Brussels with Commission President José Manuel Barroso on 27 May, assuring him that Bulgaria will abide by EU rules, the authorities in Sofia awarded the construction of the Bulgarian stretch of South Stream to Russia’s Stroytransgaz consortium.

A major shareholder in Stroytransgaz is the Volga Group, owned by Gennady Timchenko, who was placed on the US’s sanctions list against Russia in March. Timchenko is believed to be the sixth richest man in Russia, according to Forbes, and has...