Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Azerbaijan have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to encourage cooperation on gas transmission.
The document was signed under the recently-proposed initiative “Solidarity Ring”, which aims for the transmission of additional quantities of natural gas from Azerbaijan to Central and Southeast Europe.
Bulgarian President Rumen Radev and his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, attended the signing ceremony.
Radev said that the memorandum would reaffirm the successful partnership between the five countries, and lead to an increase in the connectivity and capacity of the gas transmission network of the countries in the region.
Meanwhile, Aliyev said that the memorandum would allow Azerbaijan to export more gas to more European countries.
Later on Tuesday, Radev and Aliyev inaugurated the office of the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) in Bulgaria.
According to the website of the President of Azerbaijan, the Memorandum of Understanding sets out directions for cooperation between SOCAR and four distribution system operators for the supply of additional gas from Azerbaijan to Europe.
The additional gas will be supplied through the upgraded transmission network systems of Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia, called the “Solidarity ring”.
