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Bulgaria re-opens Kozloduy nuclear plant in absentia of the EU after Russia stops supply
A file picture dated 11 September 2006 shows the Units 5 and 6 of the Bulgarian nuclear power plant during a sunrise in the town of Kozloduy.
Earlier today (January 6, 2009) following the total natural gas cut of supplies from Russia through Ukraine, Bulgarian president Georgi Parvanov, announced that Bulgaria will reopen one of the power plants closed several years ago. The history of the reactor includes an accident which resulted in radioactive leakage. Bulgaria had closed Units 1 and 2 of the Kozloduy plant in 1993 under an agreement with the EU and took off-line Units 3 and 4, immediately before Bulgaria’s accession to the EU. Yesterday the situation was quiet and CoRePer I, which is the technocratic instrument of the Member States permanently residing in Brussels, convened under the Czech Presidency and decided not to intervene in the dispute between Russia and Ukraine on reduction of gas supplies. Among 27 Member States only Lithuania want to raise the issue at political level. CoRePer I, however, decided to send a Fact Finding Mission to Kiev and then to Moscow, to assess the situation which until then, the EU was considering of business nature. During the night , the situation was reveresed, when Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Puttin, asked Alexei Miller, Gazprom President, to suspend supplies of gas to Europe by 18% which is the amount that Russia claims that Ulkraine steals from the pipelines crossing the Ukrinian territories.
What is interesting and it is highly political, is the decision of Ukraine to suspend completely the supply of gas to the Balkans, is among others to Romania (*has some own resources), Bulgaria (has none), Greece (has alternative sources from the south) and Turkey (has alternative sources).
This morning, the Czech presidency, in a joint statement with the European Commission demanded the immediate resumption of gas deliveries to Europe. "The Czech EU Presidency and the European Commission demand that gas supplies be restored immediately to the EU and that the two parties resume negotiations at once with a view to a definitive settlement of their bilateral commercial dispute." 
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