South Stream

Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, who officially opened the extension of the Balkan Stream gas pipeline to Bulgarian territory near Strandzha, continued the tour along the gas pipeline route and arrived in Knezha, where its northern part from Provadia to the Serbian border is being built.

According to the government, the first deputy PM and foreign minister spoke at the panel "Mission Possible -Challenges and Solutions for the Energy Transition" of the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue, to point out that the natural gas transport system in Serbia is linear.

"The construction of TurkStream is progressing according to plan, and options for extending the transit line of this gas pipeline in the European direction are also being considered," Lavrov said, according to the Russian news agency TASS.

And everything is being done in accordance with European rules, the head of the state-owned natural gas enterprise remarked.

Bajatovic told Prva TV that the Energy Agency of Serbia has already been asked for permission to build TurkStream through Serbia, and that this project in now before the Energy Community, which has a deadline of 60 days to declare itself on it.

Political party "Volya" will start to promote the idea of ​​a referendum on Bulgaria's exit from NATO. Tovaya told the Bulgarian National Radio party leader Veselin Mareshki.

Hungary's Foreign Minister has argued the abandoned South Stream gas pipeline project could be revisited following the early election in Bulgaria next month.

RIA Novosti quotes Peter Szijjarto as saying: "All these countries in the Western Balkans and Central Europe, we have the interest of revitalizing South Stream."

Bulgaria has received no notice of termination for the South Stream gas pipeline project so far, according to Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova.

In a Saturday interview for the Bulgarian National Radio she said that the Turkish Stream gas pipeline project, which was proposed as an alternative to South Stream, would be costlier due to the re-routing.

Italian company Saipem announced Thursday it had received a notification from Russia about the end of the South Stream gas pipeline project.

Saipem, a subsidiary of Italy's ENI, was to built South Stream's underwater section, but construction is now cancelled after Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier this week the project was over.

An unorthodox step by Russia, Turkey's largest natural gas provider, to cancel a giant gas project has come on the heels of an official deal in its southern neighbor, Iraq, easing an internal conflict over oil exports, reshuffling the cards in the region's energy distribution paradigm.

Bulgarian Parliament Speaker Mihail Mikov argued Prime Minister Oresharski had been misinterpreted when speaking about South Stream.

Mikov told the Bulgarian National Radio the construction of the pipeline had not been halted. He added that Plamen Oresharski could not have stopped the project, as he does not possess the competences to do so with a private company like South Stream.