September 20 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's government said on Tuesday it approved a draft bill to extend aid to the National Electricity Company (NEK) to pay compensation to Russia's Atomstroyexport for the equipment already manufactured for the scrapped Belene nuclear power plant project.
Russian nuclear corporation Rosatom said in June it was satisfied with a decision of the International Court of Arbitration, which stipulates that NEK must pay 620 million euro ($693.5 million) to Rosatom's subsidiary Atomstroyexport as compensation for ditching the project for the construction of a nuclear power plant in Belene, on the Danube river.
Bulgaria's prime minister Boyko Borissov said over the weekend that the government would consider the repayment of 800 million levs (409 million euro) to Atomstroyexport in order to avoid further interest charges related to the compensation.
Under the draft bill, NEK will pay no interest on the reimbursable aid and is not required to provide guarantees, the government said in a statement.
The aid to NEK has to be approved by the European Commission in order to be released, the government added. It did not specify what the amount of the aid will be.
In 2008, Bulgaria hired Atomstroyexport to build a 2,000 MW nuclear plant in Belene, reviving a project that had been mothballed for nearly two decades. After the project made scant headway, Sofia finally abandoned it with a parliament decision in February 2013. The government cancelled the project a year earlier due to disagreement over its estimated cost and failure to attract a strategic investor.
According to the government in Sofia, the project would cost at least 10.35 billion euro, while the Russian side estimates put the cost at some 6.3 billion euro.
($ = 0.8941 euro)