MP: Bulgaria's Ruling Parties Back EU-Compliant South Stream Pipeline

Socialist MP Tasko Ermenkovhas suggested that both ruling party BSP and co-ruling party DPS are in favor of building the South Stream gas pipeline in compliance with EU law.

In a Sunday interview for the Bulgarian National Radio, the MP from the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) announced that experts from the European Commission would arrive in Bulgaria on June 13 to discuss the future of the South Stream gas pipeline and the discrepancies in the criteria of Brussels and Sofia with representatives of the Ministry of Economy and Energy and the MPs who initiated legal changes related to the implementation of the scheme.

Ermenkov is one of the initiators of the set of legal changes to Bulgaria's Energy Act concerning South Stream.

He was positive certainty that the talks would clear all problems related to the project.

The socialist MP expressed certainty that the parties would find compromise solutions to settle the misunderstandings, delineate the boundaries of "gas Europe", and move forward, acknowledging that the South Stream gas pipeline would be implemented in line with EU and Bulgarian interests and in compliance with EU law.

In a Saturday interview for Darik radio, Ermenkov insisted that the South Stream gas pipeline was a project of national importance and its implementation was not supposed to depend on the lifespan of the government.

Asked to comment on the proposal to introduce compulsory voting, he said that the matter drew mixed responses, adding that the measure could help clear electoral rolls of invalid entries.

Ermenkov was rather evasive about the need to replace the leadership of BSP after the poor results at the European Parliament elections on May 25, suggesting that any party would benefit from a...