Energy Squeeze

To date, Bulgaria has been the biggest electricity exporter in the Balkans. The Kozloduy nuclear power plant, 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Sofia on the Donau river, puts out energy for Albania, Greece, Macadonia, Romania, Serbia, Kosovo, and Turkey.

But this situation will end when Bulgaria joins the EU. Even though the plants at Kozloduy have been deemed safe by EU experts, under the terms of the country's accession accord, the reactors must be shut down.

The result is likely to be costly all around. Bulgaria will not only lose bilions of euros in export revenues, but electricity may become scarce, and costs are likely to soar.

'Like a funeral'

Greece and Macedonia have already complained about the future of their resources.

“I feel like I'm at a funeral," said the acting director of the Kozloduy plants.“The units are in perfect condition."

In its heyday, the atomic power plant at Kozloduy had six Soviet-built reactors in its network, including four older, 440 megawatt ones, and two newer ones that produce 1000 megawatts. A precondition for EU membership in the postcommunist era was turning off reactors 1 and 2 in 2002.

This came about after the seven leading industrial countries, the G7, decided to shut down all first-generation reactors. The question of whether to shut down reactors 3 and 4 was open for a while. Then Bulgaria and the European commission agreed upon the 2006 shut-down date.

Recent survey have showed three quarters of Bulgarians opposed to shutting down the reactors. A citizens' committee to save the atomic power plant estimated losses of up to 10 billion euros, due to missing revenue, higher costs for possible energy imports, and the cost associated with shutting down the reactors.

'Legal obligation'

Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov told a radio interviewer he was worried about securing energy sources for the Balkans, and fostered hopes for an extension of the shut-down deadline for Kozloduy.

He appears likely to be disappointed, according to Roland Kobia, who is responsible for nuclear policy in the European commission Energy department.

“The situation is very clear," Kobia said. "Bulgaria has a legal obligation to shut down the plants, according to the terms of the EU entry agreement. There is nothing to debate about."

Yet it seems that Bulgaria has indeed held out hope for a reprieve – or at least the possibility to put off the shut down. It spent hundreds of millions of euros to invest in a system to bring up the reactors' security systems to levels meeting EU recommendations. A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) attested that the reactors, rehabbed in 1980 and 1982 were as secure as others that were just as old – and still allowed to operate in other EU countries.

Danger for the Balkans

In 2003, Bulgarian regulators issued operating licenses for Kozloduy 3 and 4 until 2010 and 2012, and according to EU controllers, all recommendations were "adequately approached." Further oversight of Bulgaria was deemed unnecessary.

The electricity produced in Bulgararia plays a significant role in providing energy for the Balkans, according to the European Parliament. They also said that "closing Koslodui blocks 3 and 4 would destroy the delicate energy balance in a region that continues to be economically and politically unstable."

But the European commission insists on sticking to the EU entry accords, which state that all reactors of that generation must be shut down. For its part, the Bulgarian government has put up very little resistance, since opening up energy talks again would delay EU entry for the country by at least a year.

Safety warning

Yet there are those, even in Bulgaria, who agree in principle with the EU. Georgi Kastchiev, who was the head of the Bulgarian atomic energy agency between 1997 and 2001, welcomed the shut-down. The move to close first-generation plants is "very good for safety."

The expert reports on Kozloduy 3 and 4 may have been very diplomatically formulated, Katschiev said, but he urged a closer look at the details: the security calculations were made under "realistic assumptions." But for the best possible security, the calculations should be made under what is called "conservative assumptions" – which means assuming that all possible security-system errors occur at the same time.

“The reconstruction improved the situation in many ways," said Kastchiev. “But having a first-generation reactor is really like having an old car. Whatever you do, you can't change it over entirely to modern technologies."

The same goes for for western models as well as Russian-built reactors, Kastchiev clarified.