Bulgarian Left-Wing Leader Vows to Revive Killed Belene N-Plant

Sergey Stanishev, leder of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and interim president of the Party of European Socialists. Photo by BGNES

Left-wing Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) will resume the Belene Nuclear Power Plant project if it enters the next government, the party's leader Sergey Stanishev has stated.

"We declare our clear intention to organize a petition for a referendum to determine the fate of nuclear energy in Bulgaria," Stanishev said, as cited by the Focus news agency.

BSP has stated it would be ready with the first stage of the referendum's organization by May 12 2012.

Earlier on Friday, MPs from BSP and the far-right Ataka (Attack) party, as well as one independent lawmaker, Georgi Terziyski, filed a no-confidence motion in the country's Parliament over the government's decision to scrap the nuclear project. The no-confidence vote, which will probably take place next week, is doomed to fail, since only 48 out of a total of 240 lawmakers are to support it.

Last week, Bulgaria's government announced it has abandoned plans to build a new, 2000 megawatt nuclear power plant on the Danube River for which it has contracted Russian state firm Atomstroyexport.

The government proposed that a gas-powered plant is built on the site in Belene.

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