Bulgaria's Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has revealed that a referendum may determine the future of the country's Belene nuclear power plant project, as well as the potential shale gas exploration.

"I'll ask President Rosen Plevneliev to initiate a referendum on Belene and on shale gas," he told the Bulgarian National Television.

Borisov's revelation came as he explained why he fired Economy and Energy Minister Traicho Traikov late on Thursday.

According to the PM, Traikov had been sacked because since the beginning of the term of GERB's cabinet nothing has changed in the Bulgarian energy sector.

He dismissed as non-sense reports that Traikov is leaving because he had been against the project to build with Russian financing a second Nuclear Power Plant, NPP, in the Danube town of Belene, stressing he had sent Traikov and Finance Minister, Simeon Djankov to Moscow to "tell the Russians that Bulgaria is giving up on the project."

"We have already paid for two-thirds of the reactor, we will pay the whole price and we will use it as a seventh unit in the Kozloduy NPP," the Prime Minister explained, referring to the country's sole existing Nuclear Power Plant.

However, he did comment on whether a decision has been taken to scrap Belene.

"A project like this can't be stopped easily, since we have to return a credit worth half a billion that we took from the taxpayers' money," Borisov explained.

In October, Bulgaria and Russia reached an agreement to extend the negotiations over Belene nuclear project by another six months as of the beginning of October amidst continuing haggling over its price and feasibility.

The contract between Bulgaria's National Electric Company NEK and Russia's Atomstroyexport, a subsidiary of Rosatom, was extended by the end of March.

Following widespread protests, on January 17, the Bulgarian government revoked a shale gas exploration permit granted to US Chevron for deposits in Northeastern Bulgaria, citing the insufficient proof of the environmental safety of hydraulic fracturing.

On January 18, the Cabinet imposed an indefinite ban on hydraulic fracturing, a method which involves injecting a mix of water, sand and chemicals at very high pressure deep underground to crack rock and release oil and gas.

Despite the move, Bulgarian environmental activists launched new initiatives in end-February, insisting that the ban should be enshrined in a law.

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