Bulgaria Ex-Minister Indicted Over Belene Deal

Sofia City Prosecutors have charged former minister Petar Dimitrov with deliberately failing to apply the necessary controls over the work of two former CEOs of the state-owned National Electric Company, or NEC.

As a result, the two men, Lubomir Velkov and Mardik Papazyan, in 2007 signed a contract for sale of an old Czech-produced reactor from the Belene nuclear plant to Russia's Atomstroyexport, causing damages to the state worth over 77 million euros, the prosecution says.

The reactor was later installed in the nuclear power plant in Kaliningrad, in Russia on the Baltic.

Velkov and Papazyan were both indicted over the same case on Monday. The government ousted former minster Dimitrov from a top management post in the state Radioactive Waste Enterprise on Tuesday.

Dimitrov was a minister of economy and energy during the coalition government of Sergey Stanishev, comprising the Bulgarian Socialist Party, the ethnic-Turkish dominated Movement for Rights and Freedoms and the National Movement for Stability and Progress Party, founded by Bulgaria's last monarch, Simeon-Saxe-Goburg-Gotha.

The Belene nuclear power plant project dates from the 1970s, but it was set as a priority and restarted during the cabinet of Stanishev, now a leader of the Party of European Socialists.

In 2013, the first government of current Prime Minister Boyko Borissov abandoned the Belene project due to lack of funds and lack of interest on the part of investors.

 In June, a court in Geneva ordered Bulgaria to pay over 550 million euros in compensation to the Russian firm for the production of two nuclear reactions intended for the aborted project. 

Bulgarian MP in Sepptember backed a bill that allows the state budget to cover the debts owed to...