site.btaGERB, MRF to Move for Ending Lukoil's Exception from EU Ban on Russian Oil from Jan. 1

GERB and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) will move for ending an exception for the Lukoil Neftochim Burgas oil refinery from the EU ban on Russian oil from January 1, 2024, MP Delyan Dobrev told the press in Parliament Tuesday. "Myself, together with Boyko Borissov, the current leader of GERB, and [MRF floor leader] Delyan Peevski will move such a bill. I had a call with [Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria co-floor leader] Hristo Ivanov and he said that if Boyko Borissov supports it, he would support it as well," said Dobrev.

He will move for holding an extraordinary sitting of the parliamentary energy committee on Tuesday. 

In 2022, the European Commission granted Bulgaria the derogation from the EU embargo on oil imports from Russia due to the country's specific geographic exposure. Under the effective legislation, the exemption is to be revoked on October 1, 2024, three months ahead of the initial December 31, 2024 deadline.

In the previous development on the issue of the Lukoil exception, on November 16, Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov convened an extraordinary meeting of the Government's Security Council in connection with a bill, again moved by Delyan Dobrev that would have revoked the derogation within three days. At its 3.5-hour long meeting, the Council considered two options for an earlier removal of the exemption: December 31, 2023 or March 1, 2024. GERB and MRF were adamant that the derogation should be scrapped sooner or immediately. Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) argued that the earliest possible date is March 1, 2024. Later the same day, Dobrev's motion for dropping Lukoil's derogation with immediate effect was defeated in Parliament.

On Tuesday, Dobrev argued that Bulgaria never needed the derogation and that it benefits Lukoil and Putin's regime. In the last one and a half years, Bulgaria has been the world's fourth largest customer for Russian oil: from 15 million barrels this country has started to buy 45 million barrels. "What happens with these huge quantities of Russian oil? Obviously they are not sold on the Bulgarian market; over 60% of it is exported. A third of the exports go to the open seas to be reloaded to other ships. That is why we are already receiving alerts from the European Commission," Dobrev said.