site.btaPresident to Convene Consultative Council for National Security on Energy Security Issues

Plovdiv, South Central Bulgaria, March 13 (BTA) - Bulgarian President Rumen Radev said here on Tuesday that he will convene a Consultative Council for National Security in the second half of April to consider matters concerning the country's energy security in connection the sale of CEZ Group's Bulgarian assets.

The moves comes in the wake of the political turmoil triggered by CEZ's announcement that it had decided to sell its Bulgarian electricity distribution business to an obscure local company, Pazardjik-based Inercom Bulgaria, wholly owned by Ginka Vurbakova. While the selling price of the assets has not been formally disclosed, media reports set it at 342.5 million euro. The Bulgarian Government is aspiring to acquire a participating interest in CEZ Bulgaria, arguing that it is a strategic company relevant to national security.

"The Government owes the Bulgarian people answers to the question about how the CEZ deal is to be financed and how this deal obtained political support," Radev specified. "Without such support, the banks could not have possibly assumed such an enormous commitment to the deal. Until the question of the financing scheme is clarified, we can't possibly sort out the form and the manner in which the Bulgarian Government is readying to enter into partnership with Vurbakova," the head of State added. He argued that nobody knows who is negotiating with CEZ Group on behalf of the Bulgarian State and who is negotiating on behalf of Mrs Vurbakova.

"I dare say and I assert it positively that the [special] services have not provided me with information on this matter so far," the President said. In his words, he received the information that had been regularly submitted to the Council of Ministers only after expressly insisting on that.