There is no way to renounce the privatization contracts of Bulgaria’s three foreign-owned power utilities, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said Sunday night.

Borisov pointed out that the five-year period in which the government had the right to annul the contracts had expired, and that the state had no interest in nationalization because then it would have to repay to the foreign companies the money they had invested in Bulgaria.

This is how, speaking on Nova TV, the Prime Minister followed up on his earlier statements with respect to the electricity distribution companies.

Over the last two weeks, Borisov said the electricity pricing schemes in Bulgaria were excessively favorable to the power utilities and accused political lobbyists and the State Commission for Energy and Water Regulation (DKEVR) of crafting and perpetuating a model in which the power utilities, Czech-owned CEZ, German-owned EON, and Austrian-owned EVN, sell electricity to the consumers twice as expensive as they buy it from power plants.

Borisov stressed that an inspection of the situation has been in progress since April 1.

“I hope that the State Commission will finally become a real regulator. I also truly hope that the large companies have not lied about their investments, because if they have, we can impose on them fines of dozens of millions of leva,” the PM vowed.

He further pointed out that there is an audit in progress in the National Electric Company NEK slamming the former government of Sergey Stanishev for allowing a situation in which NEK is in a factual state of bankruptcy with its debt of BGN 1.2 B.