Romania

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov announced on Saturday that the oil and gas explorations in the continental shelf of the Black Sea will begin in February next year.

Borisov said that if his first government had not been forced to resign in 2013, the exploration of the Khan Asparuh field would have started by now.

Bulgaria plans to cut its military expenditures despite the call of NATO to increase the spending on defence.

According to a diplomatic source of RIA Novosti in Brussels, a total of seven NATO member countries are planning to decrease their military budgets.

Romanian royalists are mystified by the decision of their 94-year-old ex-king this week to suddenly cut out his popular grandson, Prince Nicholas, from the line of succession.

Turkey has developed into a headache for Austria?s OMV, which took a 205 million-euro hit on its Samsun power plant after several quarters of low profits, according to Reuters.

The company?s new chief executive, Rainer Seele, said he saw a ?difficult future? for OMV in Turkey, especially for Samsun, according to Reuters report. 

Bulgaria's reigning football champion Ludogorets signed on Thursday a contract with the Romanian striker Claudiu Keseru for three years.

The 28-year-old Romanian started his career at his hometown club - Bihor Oradea before moving to France, where he competed for the teams of Nantes, Libourne, Tours, Angers and Bastia.

More than 130 kilograms of heroin have been seized by Moldova's customs service on the country's border with Romania.

The drugs were found late on Monday hidden in 250 packages in a truck transporting tiles from Ukraine to Bulgaria. The market value of the confiscated heroin is said to be between 10 and 20 million euros.

Musician Goran Bregovic and his orchestra are coming in September to add appeal to a grill festival that involves Bulgarian food producers and master chefs from around the region, a news website has said.

The European Commission has this month approved 23 multiannual national programmes under the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) and the Internal Security Fund (ISF). The total funding for the agreed programmes is approximately €2.4 billion, for the period 2014-2020.

WWF Bulgaria has implemented a project to release more than 50,000 baby sturgeons in the Danube to help bring the species back from the brink of extinction, AFP reported on Tuesday.

Exports from Bulgaria to other EU member states increased by 12.2% between January and May compared to the same period of last year, according to preliminary data from the national statistics body.

The total volume amounted to BGN 11.6 B, with Germany, Italy, Romania, Greece, Belgium and France remaining the country's main trade partners.