The visit of Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov from 12-13 October has followed tradition of development of French-Bulgarian relations more in the political and less so in the economic sphere.

France has emerged as one of the closest allies of Bulgaria in EU. It is no mere coincidence that PM Borisov’s first visit abroad was precisely to the French capital. In his words, Bulgaria has met with an overall support of its policies in the fight against corruption and organized crime, nuclear energy, and the topical issue of unfreezing of EU funds due to doubts of corruption in their absorption. Sofia and Paris have agreed on crucial positions of their new EC Commissioners. Borisov has given his French counterpart François Fillon a gift – a copy of the one of the pieces of the Panagyurishte golden Thracian treasure while to the French President Nicolas Sarcozy, Borisov has given a copy of a golden rhyton.

After his conversation with Nicolas Sarcozy, Borisov said that France took up the initiative to aid Bulgaria in obtaining the 300 mln euro promised by EC as an additional compensation for the shutdown of reactors in NPP Kozloduy. Concerning the construction of the second NPP Belene, French companies have expressed interest in participating in it. A leading country in nuclear technology, France would like to see itself as a main, rather than secondary party since the first is Russia, France’s largest nuclear competitor, in the construction of NPP Belene. After his talk with Sarkozy, Bulgarian PM Borisov pointed out that they had discussed how Bulgaria saw the withstanding of energy independence provided the second NPP in Bulgaria had also been built by Russia. On several occasions, Sarcozy had mentioned Chernobil although neither NPP Kozloduy had nor NPP Belene would have the earliest type of Russian graphite nuclear reactors. In his resonse, Borisov explained that he had little space to maneuver because the contracts with Russia had been signed by the previous government. Borisov also emphasized that for the construction of the second NPP Belene, Bulgaria would seek economic but also political guarantees from EU for the viability of the plant. “I don’t want that in 15 years time EU seeks the shutdown of Belene as it did for Kozloduy,” Borisov said.

Boiko Borisov explained to his French counterpart Fillon that at the moment Bulgaria could not carry out its arrangement for the purchase of French corvettes to the amount of 750 mln euro due to the global economic crisis which had hit hard the country’s budget. According to Energy Minister Traicho Traikov, French companies have expressed serious interests in public-private partnerships in large infrastructure projects in Bulgaria.

At a reception in the Bulgarian embassy in Paris attended by representatives of the Bulgarian community there, PM Borisov said the following: “Fortunately, the current EU attitude to Bulgaria is favorable. We need to take advantage of that as a nation and solve our domestic problems. It’s about time Bulgaria to become a middle-class European country which we were in the past and which we can be in the future. We need not be last in incomes and first in corruption.”

English version: Delian Zahariev