OREANDA-NEWS "Strange things are happening on the European energy market," Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said, commenting on Bulgaria's introduction of an excise tax on the transit of Russian gas, he was quoted by the Tanyug agency.

"We and the Hungarians reacted yesterday with a joint message, Sinisha Mali signed the decision with Szijjarto, Orban and I approved. Strange things are happening — gas has jumped again, oil has jumped. A day after the start of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, we agreed that we would not allow diesel to grow further, regardless of how much we would have to pay for it," the Serbian head of state said at the One Belt, One Road summit in China.

Sofia on October 13 set an excise tax of BGN 20 (ten euros) for each megawatt-hour of Russian gas transit. The new fee is about a fifth of the current base price of TTF gas (50 euros per megawatt hour). Usually, the transit fee does not exceed ten percent of the actual cost of the energy carrier. Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov said that Hungary and Serbia received an exception from the sanctions on gas imports from Russia, and the introduced measure will strengthen competition in the gas market.