Bulgaria may not face a cold, but an expensive winter.

At the beginning of the year, the Bulgarian energy supervisory authority announced in Sofia that it had approved an application from the utility Bulgargaz to increase wholesale prices for natural gas by more than 30 percent.

As a result, gas prices in Bulgaria have increased by around fivefold compared to a year ago.

Michael Martens

Correspondent for Southeast European countries based in Vienna.

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Since Bulgaria, almost 15 years after joining the European Union in 2007, is still by far the economically weakest state in the Union with the lowest average incomes, the price increases of the past few months can also become an early burden for the new coalition government of Prime Minister Kyrill Petkov .

It had actually declared the fight against mismanagement and corruption to be its most important goal, but is now facing short-term challenges due to the sharp rise in energy prices and the inflation that it promotes, which require all of their attention.

Nuclear power is popular in Bulgaria

According to information from Sofia, the gas price in January will be 133.4 lev (the equivalent of around 68.20 euros) per megawatt hour.

In the last few months of last year, the energy supervisory authority had already approved several, in some cases significant, price increases by the utilities, with reference to international developments.

The strong growth in costs should also reignite the debate about Bulgaria's energy supply mix.

One of the topics for many years has been the idea of ​​building another nuclear power plant next to the existing one in Kozloduy on the Danube.

Nuclear power is popular with the population and with most parties in Bulgaria - ideologically, there is hardly anything in the way of expanding nuclear power, at least at home.

Another question that has preoccupied Bulgaria's energy policy for more than a decade is the question of the completion of a so-called interconnector that will connect Bulgaria's gas pipeline system with Greece and thus enable the import of Azerbaijani gas on a larger scale. This project, which envisages a connection line from the Greek city of Komotini in western Thrace to the Bulgarian Stara Zagora, is funded by the EU, but construction has been slow for years for various reasons. A decade ago it was announced that the interconnector could be operational by 2013. It is now considered an optimistic assumption that it will come this autumn.

Sometimes workers on the Bulgarian side went on strike because they had not been paid for months, and recently the alleged lack of material deliveries on the Greek side caused delays.

With the interconnector, Bulgaria hopes to be able to reduce its previous one-sided dependence on Russian gas supplies.

Almost a third of Bulgaria's gas demand can be covered by Azerbaijani deliveries, it said.

Highest price increases in more than a decade

Bulgaria is also involved in the liquefied gas terminal under construction in the northern Greek port city of Alexandroupoli. This plant is intended to support the diversification of gas supplies for Greece, Bulgaria and other countries in Southeast Europe. The EU Commission has approved Greek state aid for the construction and declared the project to be of general European interest due to its "strategic importance". The gas, which is liquefied again on a floating plant off the coast of Alexandroupoli, is to supply the interconnector with Bulgaria in addition to Azerbaijani gas. The terminal is financed, among other things, by a loan from the European Investment Bank and funds from the EU.

Of course, this does not help the Petkov government in the short term.

According to figures published by the Bulgarian Statistical Office in December, Bulgaria recorded the highest price increases in more than a decade last year.

The inflation was therefore more than seven percent.

In Bulgarian society, increases in basic foodstuffs or heating costs quickly become noticeable in many households.

Bulgarian industrial associations recently announced that the energy price crisis was more threatening for the country's economy than the 2009 financial crisis. An employers' association warned of bankruptcies and a chain reaction.

Higher subsidies for electricity customers in industry were called for.