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Serbian Energy Ministry Rules Out Construction of Nuclear Power Plants

Posted on: Monday, 13 March 2006, 09:00 CST

Text of report by V. Spasic: "Neighbours surround Serbia with nuclear power plants" published by Serbian newspaper Glas Javnosti on 3 March; subheading as published

Belgrade - Although the Serbian authorities are against building nuclear power plants, Croats are planning to build one in the near future at Erdut, practically on the border with Serbia, while Hungarians are planning one in Pecs. No final decision about these locations has as yet been made, but there is a decision to build a new nuclear power plant, Belene, in the vicinity of Kozloduy in Bulgaria. There are already two nuclear power plants situated about 100 km from our border - Kozloduy on the Bulgarian-Romanian border and Paks in Hungary; a little further away, there are the Cernavoda nuclear power plant on the shores of the Blacks Sea in Romania and the Krsko nuclear power plant on the Croatian-Slovene border.

If the neighbouring countries do not change their minds about building nuclear power plants close to our border, the question arises as to whether Serbia can prevent the building of such power plants and what regulation it should invoke.

Agreement Between Countries?

At the Ministry of Science and Environmental Protection they say that, so far, all the information they have about plans to build a nuclear power plant comes from Croatian media, where not one but four locations have been mooted. "No official information or initiative has been received so far from any Croatian ministry. As for Erdut, which is the border-belt location mentioned in this context, it is the position of the ministry that building a nuclear power plant in the border zone is a matter on which both countries need to agree. In order words, we should be consulted. Building such a facility is extremely controversial from our point of view," they say at this ministry.

Experts in this field explain that a country always seeks the consent of its neighbours in such matters.

"We can refuse to give our consent to the Croats, but the question is what reasons we can advance, realistically speaking, when there are already nuclear power plants close to our borders in Hungary and Bulgaria," experts explain, adding that a dispute over this matter might aggravate interstate relations.

How To Benefit

Where building nuclear power plants in Serbia is concerned, at the Ministry of Science and Environmental Protection they say that they support the Energy Ministry's position that there are no plans for building this kind of facilities in our country. At the Energy Ministry they quote the law that bans building nuclear power plants in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Energy Development Strategy for the period ending 2015. "The law bans building such facilities and the strategy contains no plans for building nuclear power plants in Serbia," they say at this ministry.

"One should know that building a nuclear power plant is a very costly business and that Serbia has potentials for building thermoelectric and hydroelectric power plants, using renewable sources of energy, and increasing energy efficiency," they say at the Energy Ministry.

The South East Europe Energy Community Treaty envisages building electric power stations in the region jointly in several countries. This might be a chance for Serbia - if it already cannot prevent the building of dangerous electric power plants - to think about co- investment in order to obtain part of the electricity thus generated, especially when one knows that it will have an electricity shortage problem in 2010. At the Energy Ministry they say that they have received no official invitation so far for joint construction, as well as that they have no plans to enter into such an investment.

Source: BBC Monitoring European

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