Radan Kanev of the Reformist Bloc will contest the construction permit for the South Stream pipeline compressor station in the Pasha Dere area near Varna, reports Dnevnik.bg. 

According to the publication, Kanev made public his intention via his Facebook profile and urged Varna Mayor Ivan Portnih to also contest the permit. Kanev confirmed that the complaint is addressed to the Administrative Court via the Regional Development Ministry. 

Kanev, who is a lawyer by trade, told Dnevnik.bg it was likely that the court will dismiss his complaint, because he is not “an interested party” in the construction of the South Stream pipeline. “This is why I urge the Varna mayor to file a similar complaint,” Kanev said. 

According to him, some clauses in the permit for the construction of the compressor station caused serious concern about the price of the project. “No one knows how much it will cost,” he said. “By the end of the year the price could be well into the billions.”

On Thursday caretaker Deputy Prime Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva told the media that preparatory actions for the gas pipeline project had been carried out during the term in office of the socialist-led government of Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski despite the assurances that the scheme had been suspended.

Zaharieva announced that State Gazette publications made it clear that former Regional Development Minister Desislava Terzieva had issued a last-minute construction permit for a compressor station and for the Pasha Dere receiving terminal.

Bulgaria's caretaker Prime Minister declared that she had learned about the permit through media reports and had ordered a probe into the matter.