In an interview with bTV station, Anatoly Makarov<\/b> has said that Russia<\/b> is not the only country eyeing the project in case Bulgaria is interesting in giving it another lease of life following the early election.<\/p>\n
Bulgaria is heading for a snap vote on March 26, with some polls predicting the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) – which speaks in favour of the Belene NPP<\/b> – may win.<\/p>\n
Sofia abandoned Belene NPP<\/b> project under the first government of Boyko Borisov.<\/p>\n
But after Bulgaria paid off its debt to Russia<\/b>‘s Atostroyexport, imposed after authorities lost an arbitration lawsuit, Borisov’s second cabinet last year expressed interest in potentially renewing the project, but as a private venture. The decision was partly motivated by the fact that after paying, Bulgaria received reactors and equipment constructed for the project.<\/p>\n
“It is not only Russia, there are also other states and firms willing to build Belene,” Makarov has said.<\/strong><\/p>\n He has attributed the end to the project to a “lack of political will”.<\/p>\n Makarov has made it clear Russia<\/b> is also interested in taking part in the so-called Balkan Gas Hub project, an idea pitched by Sofia as a way to diversify its sources by turning into a transit point. Moscow could only get involved if there are guarantees from the EU to avoid the fate of South Stream<\/b> – a gas pipeline project which Bulgaria obstructed after being warned over it by the European Commission.<\/p>\n So far Russian authorities have not voiced stark interest in the Balkan Gas Hub, with Energy Minister Alexander Novak previously having played down the Bulgarian ambitions.<\/p>\n Moscow, however, has now been signalling it is ready to return to South Stream<\/b> again (after halting it in December 2014 due to Bulgarian and EU resistance), but only if there are “iron-clad guarantees”.<\/p>\n Makarov has refuted claims of Russian influence on Bulgaria, dismissing them as part of the “election campaign”.<\/p>\n Source: http:\/\/www.novinite.com\/articles\/179113\/Russia+Ready+to+Attract+Investor+for+Bulgaria%27s+Belene+N-Plant+-+Ambassador#sthash.WkWoA2TV.dpuf<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Moscow’s Ambassador to Sofia has said Russia stands ready to renew construction of abandoned Belene nuclear power plant (NPP) project,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11419,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[276],"tags":[603,381,604,605],"class_list":{"0":"post-13556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sr-blog-business-development-nl","8":"tag-belene-nl","9":"tag-business-nl","10":"tag-investment-nl","11":"tag-investor-for-bulgarias-belene-nl"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sr-management.bg\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}