Nuclear ballot proposal altered by government

[INIREF*I&R ~ GB]

Kommersant: Bulgaria gives Rosatom hope
<http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n290752>
25 October 2012 | 09:07 | FOCUS News Agency
Home / European Union
*/Sofia./* The Bulgarian parliament has approved a referendum on the
implementation of nuclear projects in the country. This will be the
first referendum in Bulgaria in the past 40 years. However, the topic
has been changed. First the Bulgarian Socialist Party collected 540,000
signatures in support of the referendum about the construction of Belene
nuclear power plant using Russian technology. Bulgaria withdrew from the
project in March. However, pro-western President Rosen Plevneliev
suggested to the ruling party Citizens for European Development of
Bulgaria to change the question, comments the Russian newspaper
*Kommersant*.
Now citizens will have to decide whether it is useful to develop the
country’s nuclear sector. If the result is positive, Rosatom will also
get hope for Belene NPP project resumption, but Westinghouse will be
allowed to continue its investment project about the construction of a
seventh unit in Kozloduy nuclear power plant.
If Bulgarians reject the development of the nuclear sector, Sofia will
have to consider closing down Kozloduy NPP.

INIREF comments
There appears to be a deficit in Bulgaria's democracy regulations. An
authority such as a government should not be able to change a validated
citizens' proposition before a ballot of the whole electorate has been
held to decide the issue.

Even so, democracy in Bulgaria is better designed than in the UK where
no right of the electorate to "citizens' initiative and referendum" exists.

NPP = nuclear power plant
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I&R ~ GB Citizens' Initiative and Referendum
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http://www.iniref.org/steps.html Basic presentation
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http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/dd-gb/ Sign up for reform