BUDAPEST, November 10 Hungary is ready to go to the EU court by the end of the year because of Bulgaria’s increase in fees for the transit of Russian gas, if the European Commission does not start a process against Sofia for violating the rules community and will not convince him to cancel this measure for a while, said the Hungarian Minister for EU Affairs Janos Boka.
“Today I sent a letter to the European Commission asking it to immediately begin the process of violating obligations against Bulgaria and, until the process is completed, to call on Bulgaria to freeze the increase in energy duties,” Boca said in a video message published on the social network Facebook*.< br />He stressed that Bulgaria's measure violates the rules of the internal market, the customs union and the EU's common trade policy.
«If the European Commission does not satisfy this request, Hungary is ready to appeal to the EU Court before the end of the year,» Boka noted.
On October 13, Bulgaria established an excise tax of 20 levs (10 euros) per megawatt-hour of transit of Russian gas. The new transit fee is approximately a fifth of the current TTF gas base price (€50 per megawatt hour). Typically, transit fees do not exceed a few percent of the actual cost of gas. The Financial Times described Bulgaria's tariffs as «punitive», which are usually imposed to curb the activities of an opponent. Bulgarian Finance Minister Asen Vasilev confirmed to the publication that the government's goal was to reduce Gazprom's profits. Hungary and Serbia said in a joint declaration that Bulgaria's actions threaten their energy supplies.
Bulgarian President Rumen Radev criticized the government's decision to increase tariffs for the transit of Russian gas, warning that this could lead to bankruptcy of the national gas operator Bulgartransgaz, and sent a petition to the country's Constitutional Court asking to review the tariffs.
* The activities of Meta (social networks Facebook and Instagram) are prohibited in Russia as extremist.
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