Belene

63% of Bulgarians approve the government's willingness to build Belene NPP and 26% react negatively to the announcement. This shows the Gallup International research made among 800 people. According to the agency, there is a "traditional sympathy" for the Second Atomic Project.

Within a few days, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences will publish all improved options for Belene NPP on its website. This was announced by Alexander Tasev, head of the Institute for Economic Research. According to him, the report that appeared in the media is not complete.

Belene nuclear plant project can be financially successful in two thirds of the 90 scenarios developed by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS), a report by the academy presented on 16th of November, reads.

The Russian company Rosatom is open to the possibility to participate in the financing of the Belene NPP if the project is resumed. This was announced by Vadim Titov, who is the director of Rosatom International Network for Central Europe. He participated in a conference dedicated to nuclear energy in Bulgaria.

Three international companies want to invest in Belene Nuclear Power Plant. This was declared by Minister Temenuzhka Petkova who, today, announced the start of the construction of the National Radioactive Waste Repository in Belene. Reports BNT.

Bulgaria should start developing new nuclear capacities as soon as possible, or else the country's energy security will be put at risk," said Aleksandar Nikolov, former NPP Kozloduy CEO and member of the Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, according to Standart News.

 Bulgaria plans to launch a tender to sell its abandoned 2,000 megawatt nuclear power project Belene in early 2018, Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova said on Tuesday, quoted by REUTERS. 

The previous government cancelled the Belene project in 2012 after failing to find foreign investors and under pressure from Brussels and Washington to limit its energy dependence on Russia.

All employees and workers laid off from the Belene port after 2012 have been reinstated in order to prepare the facility for the arrival of the two nuclear reactors ordered for the unfinished project for a second nuclear power plant. Because of their size, the reactors are expected to be transported along the Danube river in the beginning of April.

A group of Bulgarians from a civil society pressure group held a protest outside the Presidency in Sofia on March, 12 in solidarity with Father Paolo Cortesi, the Roman Catholic priest recalled from Bulgaria after receiving death threats for sheltering a family of Syrian refugees in the northern town of Belene, according to Dnevnik.

A Catholic priest from the northern Bulgarian town of Belene has announced that he is going home to Italy after his decision to shelter a refugee family caused tensions.