Bulgarian Nationalist Leader Eager to Revive Belene N-Plant

Volen Siderov, leader of Bulgaria’s nationalist Ataka (Attack) party, has reiterated his stance that the abandoned Belene nuclear power plant project should be revived.

Siderov told the Bulgarian National Radio that a relaunch of the project would be “completely realistic.”

He claimed that the Russian nuclear power plant project would be beneficial for the country, adding that Bulgaria might also seek Chinese investments for the project.

The nationalist leader believes that the construction would cost BGN 4 B and would last four years.

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

The Bulgarian Socialist Party and Ataka have been seen as the strongest proponents of the Belene project.

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.

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