Pressed by his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to clarify the new Bulgarian Government’s stance on planned energy projects, Prime Minister Boiko Borissov said that his administration would study the contracts, potential costs and merits, and give an answer by November 2009.

Borissov met Putin in Poland on September 1 on the sidelines of a gathering of government leaders to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War 2.

The projects are the South Stream gas pipeline, planned to transit Bulgarian territory, the Bourgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline and the Belene nuclear power station project.

All three were the subjects of commitments by previous Bulgarian governments, but Borissov’s Cabinet has called into question the value of going through with the projects, especially given that it has come into office without knowing crucial details of contracts that have been shrouded in secrecy.

Putin told Borissov that he hoped that the process of the administration in Sofia investigating the contracts "would not take much time".
Firmly, Putin said that should Bulgaria decide against proceeding with the projects, it would not harm bilateral relations but "we would go through somewhere else".

"Just tell us ‘no’ and the issue will be over," Putin said, according to a transcript on the Russian government website.

In the first hours after the meeting, it seemed that South Stream – a project that is rivalled by the US-backed Nabucco pipeline project – appeared to have the strongest chances of continued Bulgarian involvement. Speaking to Bulgarian National Television, Borissov described South Stream and Nabucco as both good for Bulgaria.

Belene has been the subject of a stream of statements from those close to Borissov, including his ministers, querying the worth of the nuke project that would cost at least four billion euro. The previous government committed itself to giving Russia’s Atomstroyexport the work of completing Belene, but getting financing has been a headache.

On Bourgas-Alexandroupolis, the Russian transcript gives an indication of Putin’s thinly-veiled expression of frustration. Sofia and Moscow had been talking about the 280km project for seven years, while in just two, Russia had finished a 1500km pipeline from Eastern Siberia to the Chinese border and was poised to add a further 2000km to the Pacific shore, Putin told Borissov.

Borissov said that Bourgas-Alexandroupolis had been targeted for opposition by environmental groups and local misgivings had spawned two referendums. Overall, Borissov said, the fact that his party GERB lacked a decisive majority in Parliament meant that he needed wide consensus before being able to proceed with the projects.

Putin said that his government’s policy was to want to help turn Bulgaria into an energy centre on the Balkans and in Europe, and welcomed Borissov’s idea of Russian experts coming to Bulgaria to work with local colleagues to achieve clarity on the projects.