Novinite: EC President Advises Caution about Bulgaria's Gas Links with Russia

EC President Jose Barroso has told Tsvetan Tsvetanov, Deputy Chair of Bulgarian party GERB, that the South Stream gas pipeline has not been given priority treatment in Europe.

Barroso, as cited by the press office of GERB (Citizens Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria), informed Tsvetanov that the South Stream gas pipeline was a new project envisaging the same supplier, Russian Gazprom.

The EC President also commented that by refusing to give political priority to South Stream, Europe could focus on a gas pipeline project running from Azerbaijan through Italy, provided that Azerbaijan resisted Russian pressure.

During the meeting, former Bulgarian Interior Minister and current Deputy Chair of GERB Tsvetan Tsvetanov declared that Sergey Stanishev, leader of the Party of European Socialists (PES) and the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), kept arguing that all problems over the past two years had been the fault of the governments of the European People's Party (EPP), adding that he conveniently failed to mention the failure of socialist cabinets and the crisis they had caused in Europe.  MORE