Nuclear power ambitions cause controversy in Bulgaria.

While governments all around the world struggle to provide energy supplies, Bulgaria decided to cope with the situation by constructing a second Nuclear power plant (NPP) near the town of Belene.

According to Government, global energy pressures made the project necessary, while critics said that the project was economically flawed, open to corruption and mismanagement, and would cement Russian dominance of Bulgaria's energy sector while putting Bulgarian taxpayers at risk of footing the bill.

The project cost would probably exceed the contracted price of four billion euro, thus making Belene NPP the most expensive public works project in the country's post-communist history, International Herald Tribune (IHT) said.

The project of Belene NP began in 1981, frozen in 1990 and resurrected in 2003. Construction was restarted in 2007, with a 250 million euro loan from BNP Paribas. The project needs a technical report by the European Commission before applying for an additional 350 million euro loan from Euratom.

According to IHT, Government was pushing Belene to offset the loss of production that followed the 2006 closure of two reactors at Bulgaria's Kozloduy nuclear plant. Bulgaria agreed to shut down the reactors for safety reasons as part of its entry into the European Union.
Bulgaria used to provide 70 percent of the power import of Greece, Romania, Serbia and Macedonia. Belene was seen as a carbon-free way for Bulgaria to win back these markets.

Prime Minister Stergei Stanishev told Parliament in January 2007 that “not having its own resources of natural gas, oil and high calorie coal, Bulgaria's choice of building the Belene nuclear power plant is first and foremost a choice in favour of energy independence from fossil fuel supplies, which come precisely from Russia.”

Dependence from Russia was more than possible as Russian Atomstroyexport would build the plant and install two 1000 megawatt reactors. Thus, Belene would be the first Russian built nuclear plant in the EU.

Russia was already Bulgaria’s only provider of natural gas, of 89 percent of its imported crude oil and of 36 percent of its hard coal imports.

IHT quoted Centre for Liberal Strategies economist Georgi Ganev as saying that “all the economists have attacked Belene on the basis of price, state guarantees and independence…You can't completely lock yourself into Russian technology and Russian-supplied fuel at a moment when you are capable of diversifying.”

The lack of public debate on Belene was also criticised.