ISTANBUL, Turkey, Oct. 5 (UPI) -- Bulgaria wants at least $80 million to help build a gas pipeline to Turkey that would become part of the Nabucco project, the Bulgarian prime minister said.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov met with his Turkish and Georgian counterparts at a Black Sea energy conference in Istanbul.
Georgia and Iraq will host feeder lines for the main Nabucco artery running through Turkey.
Borisov said he was coordinating his country's position with Turkish and Georgian interests in the planned Nabucco pipeline. He said the European Union set aside roughly $275 million for the multibillion-dollar project. Sofia, however, needed another $80 million to build connections to the pipeline, the Sofia New Agency reports.
"We have to find money for Nabucco," he said.
He said the country's finance minister wouldn't sanction a loan to build a 47-mile pipeline to connect to Turkey because of the consequences for the Bulgarian economy.
"If what I have heard from all EU member states' leaders that Nabucco is a priority, we will be asking the EU for funding specially for that so that we don't suffer any losses," he was quoted as saying.
Ankara is planning a proposal for a Bulgarian link that would be presented to the European Community in the next few weeks, the Bulgarian report added.
