Serbia has reacted to Bulgarian move to put a transit tax on Russian gas through Bulgaria to Serbia and Hungary with a hold on gas prices to May 2024 in order to protect consumers further from what is already predicted to be a period of rising inflation.
Bulgaria does not buy gas from Russia, but gas is transported across Bulgaria to Serbia and Hungary. Bulgaria’s reasoning, according to Bulgarian Parliament, is that a gas price increase of will impact Russian gas sales and possibly impact Russia’s prosecuting of the war in Ukraine.
The gas increase, decided on Oct. 13, comes to USD 10.80 per megawatt hour, according to RFE/RL. It has been harshly increased
Both Hungary and Serbia have promised to address Bulgaria, with Hungarian politicians especially expressing outrage over the “unprecedented” increase by one EU player that will affect others.
Photo of Bulgarian Parliament by Nenko Lazarov, CC BY 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons.
