On November 13th Bulgarians elected a new president – general Rumen Radev, the ex-commander-in-chief of the Balkan country’s air force, supported by the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP). In a run-off election the 53-year old Radev secured almost 60 per cent of the vote, 23 percentage points ahead of Tsetska Tsatcheva, the runner-up nominated by the ruling centre-right GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria) party.

The 2016 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit will begin in Warsaw on July 8th. The meeting of NATO heads of state is expected to address issues which are seen as essential for Central and Eastern Europe’s security environment in view of Russia’s perceived aggressive posture in the region. Some of those issues will include eastward force deployment in CEE and the Baltics, propping up the anti-missile shield and the potential for the Alliance’s enlargement.

Oil and natural gas usually dominate the media discourse on Russia’s energy policies and the role they play in the country’s foreign policy deliberations. From the European perspective, this is entirely understandable, given the paramount importance of Russia as a major supplier of the blue fuel. Tracking the development of major pipeline projects under the Black or Baltic Seas and the squabbles around the gas transit through Ukraine, one could easily neglect another pivotal industry under Moscow’s control – the nuclear one.

Bulgaria has recently moved closer to diversifying its sources of natural gas supply. This time, it seems it may be happening with less geopolitical grandeur and fanfare. After years of flirting with Russia over its monster pipeline projects on the Balkans, a 182km long gas interconnector link with Greece may do the trick. The source? Most probably Azerbaijani gas.

It is common knowledge that more than two decades ago the European continent was mainly divided between two rival geopolitical blocs – the “Western” (the EU and the North Atlantic), and the “Eastern” (dominated militarily and economically by the Soviet Union). This Eastern Bloc occupied a geographical space spreading from the flatlands of the Great East European Plain along the Baltic coast in the north to the Black Sea shores in the south.