Bulgaria has committed to a
fast-track payment of the debt on the
Belene
nuclear power plant
(NPP) project, Energy Minister
Temenuzhka Petkova has said.
In return,
Atomstroyexport, the company which was involved in the
Belene
NPP, will not demand interest generated on the money.
State owned National Electricity Company (
NEK) has a deadline until December
15 to pay the full amount of more than EUR 0.62 B.
If it complies with the deadline, EUR 23 M worth of interest will be cancelled,
Focus News Agency quoted Petkova as saying at a press conference.
In her words, two documents signed between
NEK and
Atomstroyexporton Wednesday solve a problem in bilateral relations.
The EU will now have to give its stance on the disbursement of state aid to
NEK,
which the Bulgarian government approved earlier in September, as a way to pay
off the debt.
Kirill Komarov, first deputy CEO of Rosatom, who also attended the press
conference, confirmed the information.T
The
Belene NPP was
abandoned in 2012. In June of this year, Bulgaria lost an arbitration lawsuit
filed by
Atomstroyexport over the project's cancellation.
In return, Bulgaria will
receive the
nuclear reactor and equipment produced for the plant's
purposes.
(
novinite.com)