“Bulgaria should abide by its commitment from 1999, concerning first and second units of Bulgaria’s Nuclear Power Plant Kozloduy, President Parvanov said during his visit to the N-plant. The government has agreed to turn off these two oldest reactors at the Kozloduy plant by the end of this year and to negotiate by 2004 a timetable for the closure of two others. “This does not necessarily mean that this would be the end of the two units,” Parvanov said. He explained that the obligatory technological idle time of first and second units necessary before switching off might be used to modernize the units under a schema similar to the modernization of third and fourth units. The financing of this enterprise must not be related to seeking aid from the EU. The Bulgarian side must fully finance the operation, the president said. He declared that he would not veto the ratification of the agreement with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) regarding the operation of the Kozloduy International Decommissioning Support Fund (KIDSF), signed in London on June 15, 2001. Bulgaria is legally obliged to close first and second units by the end of 2002, while third and fourth by the end of 2006, under the agreement. The president recommended that the Bulgarian government contemplate in a timely fashion the necessary actions needed to replace the closed nuclear capacities by new ones. He also said that the Belene nuclear power plant , which will be Bulgaria's second nuclear plant if construction is finished as the government intends, should not be an alternative to the Kozloduy nuclear plant.