site.btaEnergy Regulator Head Ivanov: Socialists' Accusations against EWRC Are Crisis PR

Sofia, June 29 (BTA) - Speaking to journalists here on Friday, Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (EWRC) Chairman Ivan Ivanov said that the accusations of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) against the EWRC are crisis PR, with the party's leadership trying to divert the attention from the internal party problems. His comment comes after on Thursday the Socialists alerted Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov about Ivanov's refusal to concern himself with the sale of the Bulgarian assets of Czech energy group CEZ.

Commenting on BSP leader Kornelia Ninova's statement that her party will submit a formal motion to the National Assembly to remove Ivanov from office, the EWRC Chairman underscored that when presenting the EWRC annual report for 2017 to Parliament on Thursday, he never said that the energy regulator would not implement the law when CEZ is concerned. In his words, at the time he simply specified the circumstances under which the EWRC can issue a transparent and correctly motivated decision.

Regarding the petition for the CEZ deal's suspension tabled to the EWRC by the Socialists, the position of the energy regulator's legal experts is that a petition could not warrant a certain decision of the EWRC, Ivanov said. A petition initiated and filed by a political force is an obvious attempt at pressure on the energy regulator's actions and decisions, because this document insists on the adoption of a very specific decision as formulated by this political force, he added.

MPs commented in the plenary chamber on Friday that there currently is an arbitration case of CEZ against Bulgaria and any public speaking on the topic could lead to detriments worth hundreds of millions of euro for Bulgaria, Ivanov went on to say. "I am sparing with words in my statement, because I chair a collective body and cannot speak on its behalf," he also said.