Bulgarian Rulers to RWE: Did We Chase You Away?

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has ordered Economy Minister Delyan Dobrev to ask German company RWE whether the ruling centrist-right GERB "chased it away" from the Belene Nuclear Power Plant project in 2009.

"Delyan, contact the RWE headquarters and ask them for a written statement on whether GERB and our government chased RWE away and whether RWE agreed with those loans for Belene worth half a billion," Borisov said in the Bulgarian Parliament Wednesday.

He referred to recent accusations on behalf of left-wing Bulgarian Socialist Party saying it was GERB's fault that RWE left the project.

Discussions have been renewed recently on the abandoned Belene NPP project, with Rosatom subsidiary Atomstroyexport upping its claim against Bulgaria's National Electricity Co. to EUR 1 B and a mysterious investment fund emerging with an offer to take over the project.

The Belene project was frozen in 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.

The Bulgarian government scrapped the Belene NPP project earlier in 2012, declaring it economically unfeasible. The Bulgarian Socialist Party then launched a petition for a referendum on the Russian-Bulgarian project's fate.

The referendum is expected to take place within the next three months.

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