The position announced at the press conference of the caretaker government and the Russian company „Lukoil“ from yesterday fulfills part of the proposals of “We continue the change” Draft decision, which will lead to a real decrease in fuel prices in Bulgaria. This was announced in their position by the political force, in which they add:
“We welcome the announced steps, which are also included in our plan: transfer of Lukoil’s economic activity to Bulgaria, as well as the implementation of Chapter III of Regulation 1854 for emergency intervention to deal with high energy prices, through an additional tax on excess profits from oil refining.”
However, the request to circumvent the spirit of the derogation agreed by „We continue the change“, namely “to have no ban on the export of Russian oil processing products” is worrying.
First of all, we believe that this will not be an acceptable condition for the European Commission. Three weeks ago, Daniel Ferri, spokesman for the European Commission, announced that the “limited derogation” aims at “supplying Bulgaria with oil due to the specific geographical location. This does not mean that the products can be sent to other European countries”.
Secondly, we remind you that the idea of the derogation agreed by the „Petkov“ cabinet is that the price advantage of fuels produced from Russian crude oil should remain on the Bulgarian market!
It is also important to emphasize that without the derogation, Bulgaria would have been obliged to stop the import of Russian crude oil from December 5, which would have led to a shortage of oil and oil products in the country.
“We insist that our draft decision be put to a vote by the National Assembly, despite the fact that the decision of the Council of Ministers fulfills three of our four points.”
