site.btaUPDATED Parliamentary Group Accuses President of Nearly Renouncing Sovereignty

Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) on Friday posted a position on their website, reacting to the news earlier in the day that President Rumen Radev has referred the termination of the Rosenets Port Terminal concession to the Constitutional Court.

Amendments to the Act on Control over the Application of the Restrictive Measures in View of Russia's Actions Destabilising the Situation in Ukraine, voted through by GERB-UDF, CC-DB and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, enabled the Government to terminate the concession which was granted in 2011 to Russian-controlled Lukoil that operates Bulgaria's only oil refinery, at Burgas. The President now argues that this part of the amending law is unconstitutional.

Rosenets is suspected of being operated outside Bulgarian State control and to the advantage of Russia. Radev argued, however, that the MPs ignored Bulgarian consumers' interests and the risks of price hikes of fuels and other goods, the potential job losses for thousands of workers at the refinery, and possible court actions against Bulgaria.

"Decisions in the field of energy must always rest on the need for reliability and continuity of supply of raw materials and on guaranteeing affordable prices for citizens and industry. The price of hasty and ill-advised decisions is always paid from the pockets of those forced to bear their consequences," the President stated in his reasons.   

"President Radev's claims that the State is incapable of managing precisely the Rosenets Port Terminal verge on voluntary renunciation of sovereignty and erodes trust in the institutions of State," the second largest parliamentary group emphasizes.

"It is in Bulgaria's interest that key ports should be operated by the State and anybody wishing to use them should pay a charge," the position reads. It reminds the head of State that Bulgaria is a European parliamentary republic rather than a presidential republic. The MPs see Radev's statements as "intended to defend interests other than the Bulgarian national interest and instil fear in the public."

The parliamentary group argues that because of international sanctions, conceding strategic port facilities to foreign private companies exposes national security to a risk. 

In the next place, as a EU Member State, Bulgaria is obliged to implement the measures against Vladimir Putin's regime, which include a prohibition on awarding concessions for strategic national resources to persons established in Russia. "We recall that precisely the caretaker cabinet appointed by Mr Radev refused to comply with these measures and, without adducing any arguments, secretly and expeditiously, left this concession in effect to the benefit of Lukoil despite the EU sanctions," the position reads.

Stanislav Balabanov MP of There Is Such a People commented to BTA that the termination of the Rosenets concession apparently serves the interests of the partners who run the country. "In principle, the President, as an independent institution, has the democratic right to seise the Constitutional Court of this case because we, too, our parliamentary group, expressed an opinion some time ago that there is something rotten in this rush to terminate the Rosenets concession," Balabanov pointed out.

Delyan Dobrev MP of GERB-UDF, who chairs the National Assembly Energy Committee and was among the authors of the motion leading to the concession termination, commented in Facebook that "rescinding the concession is our obligation, based on a Regulation of the European Commission that is directly applicable in Bulgaria, but it is also a moral act on our part."

Dobrev blames Continue the Change for "defending, tooth and nail, the billions worth of Russian interests in the oil industry." He quotes the head of State as insisting in his reasons that the concession is included in the scope of a derogation from a EU regulation banning the supplies and processing in Bulgaria of crude oil originating in or exported from Russia that this country was requested by the Kiril Petkov's coalition Cabinet and was allowed until the end of 2024.

The GERB-UDF MP recalls that Assen Vassilev, who was finance minister in the Petkov Cabinet, "threatened and blackmailed the European Commission to boycott all sanctions against Russia unless this derogation is allowed." "As a result of it, fuels were grossly overpriced throughout the tenure of Continue the Change and the Putin regime got billions in excessive profits. In other words, the only one who profited from that derogation was Putin, at the expense of poor Bulgarian drivers," Dobrev wrote in his post. 

A non-parliamentary civic association calling itself "Here We Come", headed by popular protest activists Arman Babikyan and Nikolay Hadjigenov, said in their reaction that Radev's motion proves yet again his desire to serve the interests of President Putin's aggressive regime. They see this as "odd behaviour by a person who keeps insisting that he is in favour of a peaceful resolution of the conflict." In the opinion of Here We Come, President Radev is "yet another Bulgarian politician ready to sacrifice his reputation for the interests of Lukoil Neftochim Burgas."