Energy Infrastructure Development in Romania and Bulgaria – A Strategic Necessity for the Energy Security of Central and South-Eastern Europe
No. 54, Jul.-Aug. 2025 In the extremely unstable geopolitical context of recent years, marked by armed conflicts, sabotage of energy infrastructure and the deliberate decoupling of Russian natural gas supplies to Europe, the need for a fundamental reconfiguration of the gas supply route becomes obvious and urgent. The suspension of Russian gas transit through Ukraine, the shutdown of the Yamal-Europe pipeline and the compromise of the Nord Stream pipelines have led to the collapse of the old traditional delivery routes, putting countries such as Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Serbia and Austria in difficulty. The only remaining functional route – TurkStream/Balkan Stream – crosses Bulgaria and has a limited capacity, which shows the vulnerability of the European energy system. In this tense context, the joint initiative of Greece, Bulgaria and Romania to create a “Vertical Gas Corridor” takes on vital strategic importance. This initiative, discussed since 2014 but reactivated in practice after the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022, proposes a complete reversal of the gas transport paradigm: instead of north to south, gas would flow from south to north – from the LNG ports and terminals in Greece, through Bulgaria and Romania, to Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova and Ukraine, and further to the rest of Central Europe. More
