site.btaBulgarian Socialist Party Position Does Not Preclude Belene N-Plant Construction

The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) has released an official position recalling that the party strictly adheres to the Agreement on Joint Governance of Bulgaria 2021-2025 in the part relevant to energy. The statement comes from the Executive Bureau of the BSP National Council, the BSP press office said.

The text of the Agreement does not preclude the construction of Belene N-plant, providing an analysis shows the viability of the project, the position says, and calls on the coalition partners to abide by the commitments undertaken.
    
The position comes in response to repeated public statements of Prime Minister Kiril Petkov related to the n-plant, in which he says that it will not be built. In his latest statement, on the national bTV, he said Belene would not be built, but new units [at Kozoloduy N-plant] were being considered.

Belene is a project to build a second nuclear power plant in Bulgaria which was conceived back in the 1980s, cancelled in 1990, and brought on and off the nation's agenda ever since.

Even during the campaign in the run-up to the November 24, 2021, early parliamentary elections, Petkov's Continue the Change Party declared itself firmly against the Belene N-plant project and considered the possibility of expansion at Kozloduy conditionally. Democratic Bulgaria, the other participant in the ruling coalition, is of a similar opinion.
     
According to the Agreement, the need of new nuclear capacity, the type of reactors and the sites chosen shall be judged after independent public expert analysis on the basis of economic viability, lowest price and construction period, the position recalls, noting that this does not exclude Belene N-plant. 

The reignited issue gave rise comments from the power holders and the opposition in Parliament. 

Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria, who are part of the ruling coalition, said that there was "no retreat from the coalition agreement," while the opposition GERB-UDF and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms argued that the case constituted "even more apparent differences in the ruling coalition and absence of clarity on Belene's fate". DT/BR, ZH