Bulgaria has committed to a fast-track payment of the debt on the Belene nuclear power plant (NPP) project, Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova has said.

In return, Atomstroyexport, the company which was involved in the Belene NPP, will not demand interest generated on the money.

State owned National Electricity Company (NEK) has a deadline until December 15 to pay the full amount of more than EUR 0.62 B.

If it complies with the deadline, EUR 23 M worth of interest will be cancelled, Focus News Agency quoted Petkova as saying at a press conference.

In her words, two documents signed between NEK and Atomstroyexport on Wednesday solve a problem in bilateral relations.

The EU will now have to give its stance on the disbursement of state aid to NEK, which the Bulgarian government approved earlier in September, as a way to pay off the debt.

Kirill Komarov, first deputy CEO of Rosatom, who also attended the press conference, confirmed the information.T

The Belene NPP was abandoned in 2012. In June of this year, Bulgaria lost an arbitration lawsuit filed by Atomstroyexport over the project's cancellation.

In return, Bulgaria will receive the nuclear reactor and equipment produced for the plant's purposes.

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