Bulgaria may agree early closure of nuclear units
Date: 27-Sep-02
Country: BULGARIA
Author: Anna Mudeva
The decommissioning of the old reactors, dubbed by the EU as unsafe, is a key pledge in EU-aspirant Bulgaria's entry talks. The Balkan state is a major power exporter in the region, with Kozloduy producing half of the country's energy.
State national radio quoted European Integration Minister Meglen Kuneva and Energy Minister Milko Kovachev as saying Bulgaria would ask the EU to check the safety of Kozloduy's reactors number three and four next year.
Sofia would then use the results of the EU's check to negotiate closing the two reactors after 2006 as Bulgaria was convinced they were safe to operate, Kuneva said.
"We can agree with any (closure) date, if we have the opportunity to prove on a technical basis the real condition of the reactors," said Kovachev.
"It is not a problem to accept the EU's position for closing reactors number three and four not later than 2006 and to require an impartial check, which would prove what we already know after the IAEA's (the world's nuclear watchdog) mission."
A June mission by IAEA found reactors three and four safe to operate. Its team reviewed 98 safety issues that had been identified in 1992 and concluded that Sofia had addressed and solved all of them, Bulgaria's nuclear watchdog has said.
Bulgaria seeks to keep its leading energy-exporting position in the Balkans after shutting, as promised, four of the Soviet-design Kozloduy's six 3,760-megawatt reactors.
Sofia bowed to the EU pressure in 2000 and agreed to shut down Kozloduy's two oldest 440-megawatt reactors, number one and two, before 2003.
It is still not clear when it will close the other two 440 MW reactors, number three and four.
According to a 1999 deal with the European Commission, Bulgaria should close them before 2008 and 2010, respectively, but in the last two annual reports on Bulgaria the commission insisted this should be in 2006 at the latest.
Officials in Sofia say the two reactors have been modernised and are safe and Bulgaria, which covers nearly half of the region's power deficit, cannot afford to close them so early.
A final decision over the closure of Kozloduy's reactors number three and four will be taken after negotiations with the European Commission by the end of this year.
