Bulgaria's power grid operator NEC said on March 11 its directors picked Belgium's Electrabel and Germany's RWE as the finalists in the tender to choose the minority shareholder in its planned Belene nuclear power plant on the Danube River.

Electrabel, Czech CEZ, German E.ON, Italian Enel and RWE were shortlisted at the first stage of bidding. Electrabel, owned by France's Suez, and RWE made the highest bids and would be invited to continue talks, NEC said in a statement.

Bulgaria wants the 2000-MW plant in the Danube town of Belene to make the country a major electricity exporter in the Balkans again after it was forced to shut communist-era reactors as a condition of joining the European Union in January 2007.

Nuclear energy accounts for one third of the country’s power needs and the local Government is among the EU countries, which believe nuclear energy is part of the solution to climate change, as proponents say atomic power emits almost no greenhouse gas emissions, Reuters reported earlier.

NEC would retain 51 per cent of Belene, which would be built by Russia's Atomstroiexport, controlled by gas company Gazprom, with France's Areva and Germany's Siemens as subcontractors.