Foreign Minister, Rumiana Jeleva, has declared Bulgaria was interested in participating in both Nabucco and South Stream gas transit pipelines as part of its energy sources diversification policy.

Jeleva stated this in her lecture at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC on Tuesday.

In her words, in reconsidering Bulgaria’s participation in major international energy projects such as the EU-sponsored Nabucco and the Russian South Stream, the new Bulgarian government of the GERB party has focused on looking at the sources of funding and the long-term economic efficiency of the projects.

Jeleva has made it clear that Nabucco is a very “strong” project but that Bulgaria is also interested in the realization of the Russian South Stream pipeline.

She did point out, however, that there was currently no clarity regarding when the construction of Nabucco would start, and that the situation with South Stream was pretty much the same. In her words, both projects are being realized “on paper” only for the time being.

Jeleva believes that any common EU strategy on energy security cannot be discussed by excluding Russia which is the major energy supplier for Europe. But she said other former Soviet republics such as Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan must also be included as very important factors.

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