Macedonia should take part in the building of a new Bulgarian nuclear plant or acquire some of Kosovo’s coal mines to avoid a future energy crisis, the country’s president urged.

Unfortunately, the government has so far stayed deaf to these suggestions, Branko Crvenkovski’s office told local A1 TV on October 6 in a written statement.

Crvenkovski reiterated that Macedonia will be facing a shortage of coal in several years' time and that if no alternative is found on time it could face a serious power crisis.

The government replied that they are still waiting for an offer from Bulgaria to arrive.

“We have not received any offer or any document for possible participation by Macedonia in Belene so far,” Deputy Prime Minister Ivica Bocevski told local media on October 6.

The Bulgarian nuclear plant is being built by Bulgaria’s state-owned energy giant NEK and Germany’s RWE. The plant is predicted to come online in 2013. Its construction is aimed at seriously improving the power supply in Bulgaria and in the Balkans as a whole.

According to statistics, Macedonia annually produces around 6000GWh of electricity but this satisfies only around 70 per cent of its power demand. The rest is acquired from imports that rise every consecutive year.

The country gets most of its power from coal power plants. But experts say this resource that Macedonia produces will soon be completely depleted.

Source: BalkanInsight.com