Standart: Five Important Questions Precede Putin's Visit to Sofia

For a week now the journalists in Sofia and Moscow have been speculating whether or not Russian President Vladimir Putin is going to pay a visit to Bulgaria.

However, there are some far more important issues to be resolved between the energy experts in Sofia and Moscow before Mr. Putin decides to pay a visit to Sofia, or Varna, be it on the 9th or 15th of November. Because he will come to Bulgaria for a few hours, hand in some documents to his Bulgarian partners to sign and fly back to Moscow.

Undeniably, the mega-project South Stream is the most important of the abovementioned issues. It is important to Russia, because with it Moscow will secure its positions as Europe's major supplier of natural gas, going round Ukraine. South Stream is also important to Bulgaria insofar as the country can make profit from the pipeline, provided it secures its energy independence.

And here the first controversy arises. MORE