Standart News

It appears that the municipal elections in Bulgaria due next summer will be a “two-in-one” event, as apart from electing new local governments people will vote pro and con the construction of Bulgaria’s second nuclear power plant in Belene on the Danube. The cabinet announced its decision on the referendum yesterday."A referendum will cost BGN 30-40 M, it's like holding elections. We will be holding elections in June next year anyway, so I don't know where I can get this kind of money from. We might have to revise the budget. So we are in favor, but I will insist that this referendum in favor or against the Belene NPP should include conditions. If you vote in favor, this will mean that every Bulgarian will have to pay the price of a Mercedes to the NPP, the cost of electricity will go up, it won't be cheap because somebody will have to pay for those credits. Stanishev knows that very well. He is just acting really surreptitiously towards the Bulgarians at the moment," PM Boiko Borisov commented. He has repeatedly said before that the Belene project was economically unfeasible for Bulgaria as it will cost the country over 22 million euro and the cost might escalate. That is why the Cabinet decided to scrap the project March 2012.  
Borisov’s opponent, leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) Sergey Stanishev said that the Bulgarian Socialist Party hopes the referendum on the fate of the abandoned Bulgarian-Russian Belene Nuclear Power Plant project will be held by the end of 2012.