Today in Sofia, in the presence of the President of the Republic of Bulgaria, R. Radev and the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, I. Aliyev, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed for the improvement of cooperation between the gas transmission system operators of Bulgaria (Bulgartransgaz), Romania (Transgaz), Hungary (FGSZ), Slovakia (Eustream) and the Azerbaijani SOCAR. Prepared within the framework of the joint initiative "Solidarity Ring" (STRING), proposed by Bulgaria and supported by the European Commission, the MoU aims to increase the security of natural gas supply for the EU, and above all for Central and SEE. The project envisages the transfer of additional volumes of Azerbaijani gas to Europe using the existing infrastructure of gas pipeline networks of four European countries.

The MoU was signed by the Bulgarian Minister of Energy, Rosen Hristov, the Romanian Minister of Energy, Virgil-Daniel Popescu, the Hungarian MFA and the Minister of Trade, Peter Sijarto, the Slovak Minister of Economy, Karel Hirman, and the Minister of Energy of Azerbaijan, Parviz Shahbazov.

After the memorandum signing ceremony, the two presidents officially opened the SOCAR (Azerbaijan State Gas Oil Company) office in Sofia. The agreement on the opening of the office was reached between the two heads of state in September 2022, when the PR of Azerbaijan, I. Aliyev, was on an official visit to Bulgaria.
On behalf of the Embassy of the Republic of Serbia in Sofia, the event was attended by Amb. Z. Jović, and the delegation from the Republic of Serbia was led by the director of "Srbijagas", D. Bajatović.