The project to build Bulgaria’s second nuclear power plant at Belene has cleared another important hurdle.

On December 7, the European Commission (EC) gave a clear indication it will pronounce positively on the parameters of the investment project. Several interim permissions are still pending, however. Among these is approval of the environmental impact assessment of the plant and the appraisal of risk inherent to the plant’s overall safety.

The National Electric Company (NEC – the national power grid operator and Belene project manager) is due to receive the EC notification this week, Deputy Economy and Energy Minister Galina Tosheva told reporters on December 7.

The document is set to contain a positive opinion on Articles 41 and 44 of the Euratom Treaty, namely that the project provided sufficient protection against external risks such as earthquakes and air crashes.

The EC approval opens the way to rubberstamp the binding agreement on the plant’s construction. Now the NEC has all the prerequisites at hand to sign a binding agreement with Atomstroyexport, the company tipped as main contractor for the project. The signing, expected in early January 2008, is due to allow Atomstroyexport to begin de-facto work on the technical parameters of the deal.

As for the NEC, it can now launch procedures on the selection of a strategic investor for the project as well as a bank to oversee the project’s 3.997 billion euro budget.

The NEC plans to sell a 49 per cent stake in project. Investors to have expressed interest in buy-in are Electrabel of Belgium, CEZ of the Czech Republic, E.ON and RWE of Germany and Enel of Italy.

With the EC decision, the NEC also has all the prerequisites at hand to apply for loans with the European Energy Community (Euratom) and the European Investment Bank (EIB). The country’s power grid operator hopes to borrow 300 million euro from both Euratom and the EIB.

Euratom will review NEC’s request on the basis of economic, environmental and financial parameters, the EC media office said in a statement on December 7. The EIB is set to use the same loan review pattern.

Even though the Government has issued guarantees on the said loans, there is no concrete timeframe for the loans’ issue.

The decision of the executive arm of the European Union comes despite the vociferous claims of eco-activists in late November that the project would be detrimental to the Bulgarian environment and would mean grave serious seismic and political risks. The November 25 action took place in Brussels and had Coalition BeleNE, representatives of global environmental watchdog Greenpeace and its German peer Urgewald as core organisers.

The green light no less comes amid prior concerns within the international community and the EC that Atomstroyexport is set to commission reactors that will the first of their kind to be used in the EU. For this reason, the EC demanded an extended timeframe for the detailed appraisal of the plant’s safety parameters.

The EC has also inserted remarks of caution regarding the project. Bulgaria is yet to inform the EC about plans to handle radioactive waste and hand in an environmental impact assessment for the plant. Once Bulgaria hands this information in, Euratom’s inspectorate and the EC’s Transport and Energy Chief Directorate will have a six-month deadline to pronounce on the project’s environmental implications.

The EC no less warns that the NEC should take due care that it diversify nuclear fuel supplies. For the time being, Atomstroyexport has proposed only Russia’s nuclear fuel producer TVEL as supplier. To compare, the runner-up in the tender to build Belene nuke plant, Czech Skoda Alliance, had offered deliveries both from TVEL and the US Westinghouse.