ECONOMY

Balkan states back plants’ reopening

SOFIA (Reuters) – Balkan countries asked the European Union yesterday to allow its new member Bulgaria to reopen two nuclear reactors, to avoid what they said was a power crisis in the region. Bulgaria agreed to shut two 440-megawatt reactors at its Kozloduy nuclear power plant at the end of 2006 as part of its treaty to join the bloc and address safety concerns in the EU over the aging Soviet-made units. But the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, Albania and Croatia have asked in a declaration that Brussels reassess the issue, at least until alternative power resources are built to meet shortages and surging power prices in the Balkan region. «We are concerned about the current electricity supply problems of the region which… could result in higher economic and political instability,» they said in the declaration, adopted at an energy forum in Sofia. Bulgaria’s Socialist-led government says the Kozloduy reactors are safe and has launched a campaign to reopen them and keep its position as a leading power exporter in Southeastern Europe. The EU has so far ruled this out, saying there is no clear evidence the reactors can meet the bloc’s safety standards and arguing that power shortages in the region had not been proved to be due to the shutdown. Bulgarian Economy and Energy Minister Rumen Ovcharov, who will hand the declaration to the European Commission, said he expected Romania, Kosovo and Montenegro to support the document. Bulgaria exported a record 7.8 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2006, but plans almost no exports this year because of the units’ shutdown. The document said electricity prices in the region had jumped by between 80 and 100 percent to up to -100 per MWh since the closure of the two units at Kozloduy.

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