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The European Commission is going for an all-out review of the legal and safety framework of Bulgaria's already big time troubled Belene nuclear power plant project, including over the seismic risk.
This was made clear by the EC in response to a question posed by rightist Bulgarian MEP Nadezhda Neynski released on the same day that the fate of the Belene NPP has shaken the Bulgarian government of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov over an agreement signed Tuesday with the Russian state corporation Rosatom.
The total inspection of the Belene project is motivated by the nuclear crisis in Japan's Fukushima Daiichi NPP caused by the devastating March 11 earthquake.
"On March 2011, the European Commission underscored the priority importance of the work that has to be undertaken in order to carry out a review of the safety of all nuclear power plants in Europe. The Commission and the Group of European nuclear safety regulators will coordinate this process. In addition, by the end of the present year, the Commission will execute a review of the existing legal and regulatory framework of regarding the safety of nuclear facilities. In this context, the seismic risk in the region of the Belene NPP in Bulgaria will be reviewed", states the response of the EC.
In her question MEP Neynski asked the EC if it has a formal report drafted by the Bulgarian authorities over the seismic activity in the region of the future Belene NPP, and if it is ready to demand such a report, should it not have seen one.
Neynski points out the nuclear crisis in Japan's Fukushima NPP as well as the fact that in 1977 the Danube town of Svishtov, 18 km away from the construction site of the Belene NPP, saw an earthquake of 7.2 on the Richter scale that killed 120 people, according to official reports.
Neynski also mentions a March 2011 statement by EU Commissioner for Energy Gunther Oettinger that the EC permit for the construction of the Belene NPP must be reconsidered.
In mid March 2011, a week after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake in northeastern Japan, the European Commission confirmed that it will reexamine the project for a second Bulgarian nuclear power plant in Belene amidst growing safety concerns generated by the crisis in Japan's Fukushima NPP.
Even though the EC issued an approval for the Belene NPP back in 2007, EU Commissioner for Energy Gunther Oettinger had declared the previous day that Bulgaria's project to build a second nuclear power plant, the Belene NPP, must be re-examined.
His spokesperson Marlene Holzner confirmed and elaborated his statement by making it clear that the EC will re-inspect the Belene project as soon as Bulgaria finds a new strategic investor – a search that has been going on since the fall of 2009 when German energy giant RWE decided to quit it.
The confirmation that the EC will have to approve Bulgaria's Belene project anew came just as Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom gave an ultimatum to Bulgaria to reach an agreement on the construction of the plant by the end of March and firmly demanded a price of no less than EUR 6.3 B - while reports suggest Bulgaria is asking for as little as EUR 5 B.
"It is true that the EC has already issued a positive position on the Belene project but right now we are in a situation in which it will not continue because there is no investor, and we need a partner with whom we can have a dialogue," Holzner said back then.
She made it clear that as soon as Bulgaria finds an investor in Belene, the Commission will issue a new position on the project, and will then observe if its recommendations are met.
When asked if the EC can revoke the go-ahead it has already given to Belene, Holzner said that the Commission will have to reconsider the 2007 position anyway because the plans of the new investor will be different.
EU Commissioner Oettinger's statement on Belene came in an interview for the German "Deutschlandfunk" radio as cited by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS as Japan continues to be struggling with damages caused to some of its nuclear facilities by the recent devastating earthquake and tsunami, which has led the EU to start reconsidering its own policies on nuclear energy.
The EU Commissioner said Belene needs additional technological and geological safety studies all along with its questionable financing regardless of the fact that the European Commission already granted an approval for the construction of the Belene Nuclear Power Plant as early as 2008.
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