Bulgaria will hold a referendum on the future of nuclear power in the country in mid or late January 2013. The Parliament has approved the wording of the question (“Should Bulgaria develop nuclear energy through the construction of a new nuclear power plant?”), dropping the name of the highly controversial Belene project from the debate.
In March 2012, the government decided to scrap Belene nuclear project, whose costs were escalating and which sparked tensions about Russian influence in the Bulgarian energy sector. The contract for two 1 GW reactors had been awarded to Atomstroyexport in 2009 for an initial cost of €4bn, which was reviewed to more than €10bn. Atomstroyexport has since sued Bulgaria, demanding €1bn in damages for equipment already ordered, even if the equipment could be used to build another unit at the existing Kozloduy nuclear power plant. The government hired US firm Westinghouse in August to carry out a feasibility study for the project.
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