28 Jan (NucNet): Bulgarians have voted in favour of the construction of a new nuclear power plant, but the low referendum turnout – yet to be officially confirmed – might not enough to overturn government policy not to go ahead with new build.
The referendum, held yesterday, asked voters whether nuclear energy should be developed in Bulgaria through the construction of a new nuclear power plant.
According to the Bulgarian Central Election Commission, 60.551 percent voted in favour of new nuclear and 38.024 percent against.
The referendum was called by the Bulgarian Socialist Party in an effort to force the ruling centre-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party to review its decision not to build two 1,000-megawatt VVER units at the existing Belene nuclear site.
The Alfa Research polling agency said exit polls showed the turnout was 21.8 percent, but the Central Electoral Commission is yet to release the official voter turnout figure.
According to Bulgarian law, if the turnout is more than 20 percent, and more than half of the votes are positive, the question is tabled for debate in parliament. The turnout needs to be at least 60 percent for the result to be binding.
If the exit poll figure of 21.8 percent proves correct, parliament will be obliged to discuss whether or not to build a new plant. However, the GERB has a working majority in parliament and remains against the proposed new plant.
Central Electoral Commission spokesman Biser Troyanov said today it is “too early” to announce the official turnout and the fate of the project to build a new plant “remains unknown”.
Under Bulgarian legislation parliament will have to vote on the proposal within the next three months.
The official results of the referendum are expected to be published within the next three days.
Bulgaria is considering two options for the future of nuclear. In April 2012, the country’s Cabinet decided to construct a seventh nuclear reactor unit at the Kozloduy nuclear site.
That decision came after the Cabinet decided on 28 March 2012 to abandon the project for two new units at Belene, saying it would be more realistic to add a reactor at Kozloduy where two VVER-1000s are operating and four VVER-440s are being decommissioned.
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