Bulgarian PM: No Final Decision on Kozloduy NPP Contractor

Bulgarian PM, Plamen Oresharski (second-left), at the Bucharest summit, photo by BGNES

The final decision on the contractor to build a new unit at Bulgaria's only Nuclear Power Plant in the Danube town of Kozloduy has not been made.

The statement came Tuesday from Plamen Oresharski, Prime Minister in the Socialist-endorsed government. He spoke at the summit of Central and Eastern Europe and China, which is held in the Romanian capital Bucharest.

"The route of this project from now on is very long, thus any comments on the issue are premature. The government will debate in detail the project to build a third reactor at Kozloduy NPP, but I wish for our nuclear energy to be diversified," said the PM.

Bulgaria is planning to build a new unit at Kozloduy using US technology, Economy and Energy Minister Dragomir Stoynev recently confirmed.

Stoynev, who was on a working visit to Washington DC, told the public radio, BNR, on Saturday that negotiations with American energy giant Westinghouse, to install a new nuclear unit at the Kozloduy NPP, were forthcoming and the construction could begin in 2016.

Oresharski said Tuesday that Stoynev was authorized to lead negotiations in the US and was not acting on self-initiative. He reminded that the project to build Unit 7 at the NPP was the idea of the previous government of the centrist Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party, GERB.

Oresharski has also met in Bucharest, at a working breakfast, Romanian and Slovenian counterparts, Victor Ponta and Alenka Bratusek to discuss the Russian-sponsored project to build the "South Stream" gas pipeline and they have agreed to issue a joint statement on it.

The start of the project was officially given in Bulgaria about a month ago and one day ago in Serbia.

Meanwhile, GERB, the right-wing Democrats for Strong Bulgaria party (DSB), which is part of the Reformists Bloc, and the Greens Party firmly opposed the Kozloduy NPP expansion.

GERB even said they will notify the European Commission about the Socialists planning to install a new reactor without a public tender, prompting Stoynev to comment they were using the old "snitch" tactics of the Communist regime.

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