Bulgaria Has 3 Months to Decide on Belene Nuclear Plant Project

Bulgaria has three months to decide the fate of the Belene nuclear power plant project, according to National Electric Company executive Ivo Lefterov. 

Lefterov revealed that Russian state-owned company Atomstroyexport would announce its financial claims to Bulgaria for the abandoned project by the end of the week. 

Genadiy Tepkyan, Vice President of Atomstroyexport, said Wednesday that the company is ready to file a new EUR 1 B claim against Bulgaria with the Court of International Arbitration, according to the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency. 

The Russian company may file the claim by the end of this week.

Last week, Bulgaria’s newly sworn-in Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski hinted that the Belene nuclear power plant project may be revived.

The center-right government of former PM Boyko Borisov scrapped the project for the construction of Belene back in March 2012. The move led Russia's Rosatom to file a suit with an international arbitration court in Paris.

After it was first started in the 1980s, the construction of Bulgaria's second nuclear power plant at Belene on the Danube was stopped in the early 1990s over lack of money and environmental protests.

The Belene NPP has been de facto frozen since the fall of 2009 when the previously selected strategic investor, the German company RWE, which was supposed to provide EUR 2 B in exchange for a 49% stake, pulled out.

Borisov and his Cabinet resigned in February amidst mass protest rallies against unbearable utility bills and wide-spread poverty.

Source: novinite.com