Euro commissioner for energy Andris Piebalgs said on January 24 that there was no chance to re-open blocks 3 and 4 of Kozloduy, Portal Evropa said.

Piebalgs said that an appropriate moment for a national campaign for the two blocks would have been before the accession agreement was signed, Dnevnik daily said.

That was the time when there were circumstances to have the discussion, mediapool.bg said.

Piebalgs made his statement after the start of the national campaign for re-starting the two blocks, the closure of which was part of the Bulgaria's EU accession agreement.
The campaign was announced on January 21 by Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev.

"Now I do not see any chance for the blocks to be re-started," Piebalgs said. "I think it would be unfair and contrary to the main principles which we agreed upon that the blocks were not sufficiently safe," Piebalgs.

"When they signed for shutting down the reactors, the Bulgarian authorities agreed that their level of safety was not sufficient. That became part of the accession agreement. This agreement was ratified by all EU member states and to raise the issue again, is politically dishonest," Piebalgs said.

According to Piebalgs, the plans to lease the reactors to a foreign company would not change anything.

"Expectations that we would treat a third party differently from Bulgaria are wrong," Piebalgs said. "The problem is not that the blocks belong to Bulgaria, but that she has agreed to shut them down. And whoever would be the owner or the operator, this remains in force."

Piebalgs said it would be counter-productive to keep the issue open.

However, he did not rule out the possibility that Bulgaria would receive additional compensation for shutting down the blocks if the arguments for its needs would be sufficient at the next budget discussions, Dnevnik daily said.