Sofia City Mayor Says EU Ready To Extend 175 Mln Euro in Aid for Waste Treatment Plant

“After the meetings I had yesterday and on Tuesday at the European Commission, we were assured that after the Environment Ministry files an application, we will be given 175 million euro for a waste treatment installation of the Sofia municipality,” BTA quoted Borisov as telling the city parliament.

Officials of the Representation of the European Commission in Bulgaria were not immediately available to comment.

The cabinet in Sofia pledged in July to wrap up the design and the environmental impact assessment on a planned waste treatment plant in the capital by the end of the year, in order to avoid possible legal action by the European Commission against Bulgaria over poor waste management.

The city plans to build the plant, with an annual capacity of 400,000 tonnes, in its eastern outskirts, in the village of Yana, according to Sofia-based business daily Dnevnik. Construction works are planned to begin at the end of the year and finish in 2011.

The project will be financed with EU funds, loans from the European Investment Bank or the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and money from the state budget, the government said at the time but gave no financial details.

The Sofia city authorities have announced plans to invest 257 million levs ($206.7 million/131.5 million euro) in a waste treatment plant and garbage management system by the end of 2011.

The city parliament said last year it would hire a consortium comprising German engineering consultancy firms Fichtner and Aqua Consult, and Bulgarian consultancy BT Engineering, to conduct a feasibility study on the construction of waste treatment facilities.

The two million residents of the Bulgarian capital produce some 390,000 tonnes of waste annually. Most of it is now being transported to landfills across the country, while some is baled and stored temporarily in the outskirts of the capital. The city government has said several times that a facility for permanent waste disposal must be built.

(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)