Bulgarian politician: Brussels does not know the truth about TurkStream

The TurkStream gas pipeline is a conduit for Russian interests in Southeast Europe and should be subject to sanctions, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, a former close associate of Boyko Borissov, who as prime minister ensured the construction of the Bulgarian section for a record time, told EURACTIV.

Tsvetan Tsvetanov was number two in the GERB party after its leader and former prime minister Boyko Borissov. He was very close to the party leader but left the party in 2019, after which he founded the ‘Republicans for Bulgaria' party, a force with a clear pro-Western agenda. His party is not participating in the early parliamentary elections on 2 October.

He spoke to EURACTIV’s Senior Editor Georgi Gotev.

You left the administration of Boyko Borissov in 2019. This was a period of accelerated construction of "TurkStream" and planning of its section in Bulgaria. Tell us what you know.

It all started in 2015 when Borissov announced the construction of the "Balkan" gas hub. It was presented to the EC as the unrealised Nabucco project. It received approval, both nationally and at the highest European political level. In the middle of 2017, the so-called roadmap for TurkStream in Bulgaria was agreed upon by [the then energy minister] Temenuzhka Petkova in St. Petersburg, and the accelerated construction of "TurkStream" began.

Borissov told us that with "TurkStream", we will have complete gas diversification. He said that we already have Azebaijani gas but failed to explain that this is done through a virtual swap deal and that we are actually buying Azerbaijani gas but getting Russian gas instead.

No one has asked why Bulgaria allowed Ukraine to be bypassed with the construction of "TurkStream" and why Bulgaria lost BGN 1.35 billion (€690 million) in transit fees along the then-existing corridor, which had a 10-year contract [until the launch of "TurkStream", Bulgaria transited the entire amount of Russian gas imported by Turkey, which came through Ukraine and Romania).

Borissov is the ideologue for all these meetings, which were held together with Temenuzka Petkova and Tomislav Donchev [then deputy prime minister]. Following advice from Babakov and Vorobyov, they managed to very skillfully convince the representatives of the European Commission that they were compliant with the third energy package.

[Alexander Vorobyov and Alexander Babakov are Russian oligarchs under US sanctions. In an interview with Veselin Dremdzhiev in March, Tsvetanov hinted that the two were behind the concept for Bulgaria to build the TurkStream section on Bulgarian territory with its own funds.]

We know that for diversification, more than 50% of the capacity must be accessible for other contracts that can be concluded with different gas sources. When TurkStream began operations in Bulgaria, it became clear that it had only an entrance and an exit point without any diversification. This increased Bulgaria's dependence on Russian gas by 100% by 2021. I cannot understand why there is no debate in the European Parliament in the European Commission because 90% of these quantities are reserved by the Swiss company MET, a subsidiary of Gazprom. This comes out in many reports by energy security analysts and experts.

There was even a partial recognition by Tomislav Donchev on the record on one of the national TV channels. He said that they had meetings with over 30 people when they were visiting Russia, and the persons in question [Babakov and Vorobyov] may have been there. Do you think the protocol would allow the Deputy Prime Minister, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Energy to meet with people under sanctions? It just doesn't matter to them. Because it was vital for them to advance those Russian interests that were detrimental to national security, they served foreign interests. They did not care about the EU interest and the third energy package.

Politicians need to speak out. Regarding Nord Stream, a debate is taking place at the European level, but TurkStream is absent from the discussion.

TurkStream is very important because it increases the Russian influence in Southeast Europe. This pipe feeds Serbia and Hungary, which means that this is a conduit of the interests of Putin, which arose after the annexation of Crimea and aimed at bypassing Ukraine. But let's also remember that before the annexation of Crimea, Ukraine extracted about 80% of its oil and gas deposits in the Black Sea. This is already impossible in these conditions.

I have heard that Borissov said in a close circle that if he did not build "TurkStream" according to the Russian wishes, he would be killed. This reportedly happened after the infamous photos came out in June 2020 - someone took a picture of him sleeping in his bedroom. This is how, in accelerated terms, the project started work at the end of the year. Does this seem credible to you?

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Between 2015 and 2016, he changed and there were huge differences between what he was saying internally and to our European partners. These differences including at the geopolitical level, are partly why I withdrew from GERB.

There was no way I could continue to work in this environment where things may have been as you described them. But I can't vouch for their accuracy. I can say that with our actions and the construction of TurkStream, we have served foreign interests. And right here is the question - why did the EC not follow the original concept to push for the so-called Balkan Gas Hub and Balkan Stream? What are the actual goals, and what is happening?

It must be stated that Kiril Petkov's government put all this under the spotlight and showed that the Russian side was incorrect by unilaterally stopping the gas. But we see that the current government has started to make moves that create the feeling that there is some behind-the-scenes play for the promotion and restoration of Gazprom as a supplier and that the government is seeking long-term contracts with them.

For Gazprom, it is essential to have long-term contracts with a take-or-pay clause. In the same way, we gave up the BGN 1.350 billion I mentioned, despite having a signed contract for the transit route, and whether or not deliveries were made, we would get this money. But we gave up this money and invested over 3 billion BGN (€1.5 billion) in the construction of TurkStream.

No one from the EC knows the truth about TurkStream. We lack political debates on this topic - about the geopolitics that the EU should lead, which countries are the EU Achilles' heel and can be the playground for advancing foreign interests.

I saw a few days ago on Bloomberg comments by Manfred Weber, a centre-right politician I respect. He talked about the mistakes made about Nord Stream 1 and  so why don't we raise the topic of how TurkStream was built?

These are the essential things, and that is precisely why populism and lies in these elections, playing with people's fears, always contribute to a change of the objective truth and the horizon that should be in front of our country. We only hear that there is a change in Borissov's public speaking about how pro-Euro-Atlantic he is. But Borissov did not allow military boats in the Black Sea or NATO military exercises.

As the war in Ukraine unfolds, we see increasingly ugly Russian manifestations, and sanctions against Russia are also increasing. Do you think the time has come for the EU to sanction TurkStream on European territory?

This should have been done much earlier because we could have minimised our damage.

There must be sanctions. We must separate ourselves from this Russian dependence. Putin has used oil and natural gas for geopolitics recently. And from this point of view, we see the firm and consistent actions of the EU countries.

But there must be solidarity between the EC and the EU. Bulgaria will not be able to get out of this impasse, which it will enter if such sanctions are imposed, without having the corresponding compensatory mechanisms so that we can come out stronger and united and not divide the society.

We see that Russia has invested a lot in political parties in EU countries, and it has invested in a lot of media. They have a powerful propaganda machine capable of hybrid attacks that have the potential to reverse anything that we would like to achieve in terms of fairness and objectivity.