Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev will pay a working visit to Moscow from April 26 to 28, the Government Information Service announced Friday.
The visit will take place a day after the international energy summit in Sofia, which is expected to be attended by Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and precedes the EU-Caspian summit in Prague, organized by the Czech Presidency of the block.
Stanishev is expected to have meetings with the president of the Russian federation Dmitry Medvedev, PM Valdimir Putin, the chairman of the State Duma Boris Gryzlov and the mayor of Moscow Yury Luzhkov.
The Bulgarian PM will also meet the patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Kiril, Xinhua reported.
Energy projects with many unsolved issues are a highlight in the traditionally close bilateral relations between Bulgaria and Russia, including the South Stream natural gas pipeline, Belene nuclear power plant and the oil transit pipeline connecting Bulgaria's port of Burgas and Greece's Alexandroupolis.
The Bulgarian government is expected to complete talks for Russian funding for the planned four billion euros nuclear power plant at Belene. The government chose last year German power utility RWE to become a strategic partner in the Belene project with a stake of 49 percent. State power utility NEK has a majority stake in the plant.
In the Russian capital Stanishev will also open the Bulgarian- Russian business forum and the Bulgarian national commercial- industrial exhibition, which is part of the program for marking the Year of Bulgaria in Russia.
PM Stanishev is expected to meet the Bulgarian community in Moscow. In front of the Diplomatic academy of the Russian foreign ministry, he will give a lecture on "The Bulgarian-Russian dialogue in the context of the European idea."