The paradox lies in the fact that the demands for the decommissioning of the four small reactors at the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant did not come from the experts or the national regulatory authority. What is more, there is no such demand in the report on the peer inspection of the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant which was carried out by experts from the [EU] member-states at the end of 2003. Still, the four small reactors, including the third and fourth ones which have already been redesigned, will have to be closed because Bulgaria has already promised it - for the first two in the so-called Memorandum of Understanding which was signed by the Bulgarian foreign minister and the European commissioner for enlargement in 1999 and for the third and fourth reactors at the time when the negotiating chapter on energy was closed in November 2002. I would like to recall the messages I made at your two previous forums. Having firmly and steadfastly insisted that the decisions on the decommissioning of the nuclear reactors should be made solely on the basis of expert conclusions, I called on you in 2002 to give your unbiased and objective assessment of the safety that had been achieved for the first four reactors at the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant. In a special address to the participants in the "Future of Nuclear Power Generation in Bulgaria" seminar which was organized by the European Parliament in Brussels on 1 October, I asked the member countries to carry out a peer inspection of the third and fourth reactors with the assistance of the IAEA as soon as possible and promised that the fate of these reactors would be decided once and for all depending on the results of that inspection.
At the same time, on 24 October of that year, I wrote a letter to the heads of state and government of the member countries, urging them to assist personally in the holding of the peer inspection of the third and fourth reactors as soon as possible. The service lives of these reactors would have been determined depending on the results of that inspection.
It is common knowledge that once something has been negotiated with the EU, it is very difficult to revise the agreements. Regrettably, I must admit that despite my arguments and calls Bulgaria closed the chapter on energy in November 2002 and agreed with the EU's common position that the third and fourth reactors at the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant should be decommissioned in 2006. The EU, for its part, agreed to the Bulgarian demand for a peer inspection without tying its results to the Bulgarian commitment to close the third and fourth reactors.
This prompted me to insist at your forum last year that the goals and scope of the peer inspection should be formulated clearly, so as to make it possible for the experts to provide evidence on how long the third and fourth reactors can be operated safely beyond 2006. I also called for this inspection to take place before wrapping up Bulgaria's accession talks with the EU. If the experts had found that these two reactors could be operated safely beyond 2006, this could have been used as a sufficient argument in persuading the member-states to revoke the agreement on the early decommissioning of the third and fourth reactors.
At the end of last year I urged the three Bulgarian institutions - the president, parliament, and the government - to adopt a common position on the peer inspection and to insist before the member states that its results should be considered binding for both parties. If the inspection had found that the third and fourth reactors were safe, I wanted them not to be closed in 2006.
You are already familiar with the results of the peer inspection and their consequences for Bulgaria. The truth is that despite the positive outcome of the inspection, it has not resulted in any changes in the agreements under the chapter on energy regarding the early decommissioning of the third and fourth reactors. The inspection demonstrated in a very categorical way, however, that Bulgaria had acted prematurely when it agreed to decommission two perfectly safe reactors, the third and fourth reactors at the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant. One has to raise a logical question at this point: Why was it necessary to prematurely close the chapter on energy if four other chapters have remained open to this very day. They include a non-financial chapter, the one on competition. The argument that Bulgaria's talks with the EU could not have continued if the chapter on energy was not closed is completely groundless against the background of the negotiations with Romania. Romania was never asked to accept any similar conditions and despite a certain delay in the negotiations, it has continued to follow the same schedule as Bulgaria which would lead to accession in the beginning of 2007.
If we are talking about an obvious tactical mistake by the Bulgarian side during the accession talks, could the member states show some understanding for a future member and refrain from punishing the Bulgarian people because of the mistakes of their rulers? What is more, the EU needs economically strong member states, ones that have well-developed power generation sectors, including nuclear sectors of the kind that Bulgaria has and is proud of. Would our country still have something to be proud of when it becomes a member?
I hope that you, the experts, will be able to answer this question and to support it with proper arguments. It would be good if we, the politicians of Bulgaria and the member states, finally start to listen carefully and take your expert evaluations into account, so that we could celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Bulgarian nuclear power generation sector 20 years from now with the satisfaction that we had done our duty.
Source: BGNES web site, Sofia, in Bulgarian 0946 gmt 2 Jun 04
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