The Bulgarian government gave green light in a sitting Wednesday the decision to build a new, 7th unit at the Kozloduy NPP.

The formal vote Wednesday is a follow-up of recent statements on the part of PM Boyko Borisov that Bulgaria will opt for expanding its already existing NPP after giving up building a new one at Belene.

However the new seventh unit of Kozloduy NPP will not be built using state money or state guarantees and will be open to outside investors.

"The Ministry of Finance insisted that the new NPP unit construction be done based on a market principle," stated Bulgaria's Finance Minister Simeon Djankov, who revealed the cabinet decision after the sitting.

"The state will neither use budget money nor issue state guarantees," explained Djankov, adding that a project company will have to be created, which will be allowed to draft loans for the project.

Earlier, cabinet members had said they plan to mount the nuclear reactor earmarked for the Belene NPP as a seventh unit at the Kozloduy NPP and to build a gas power plant on the site of the scrapped Belene NPP project.

Whether the Belene reactor, already commissioned and almost completed by Russian company Atomstroyexport, will be installed in Kozloduy, was not revealed Wednesday.

Wednesday the Bulgarian cabinet also voted an action plan related to the preparation for an inspection of a team of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The plan includes various technical reviews and updates at Kozloduy NPP, as well as a re-vamping of Bulgaria's national, as well as Kozloduy NPP's early warning systems in case of malfunctioning.

The IAEA team will visit the Kozloduy NPP in the period from November 26 to December 13 to estimate the exploitation safety of its currently functioning units 5 and 6.

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