EU postpones decision on Cernavoda loan

The European Union has postponed the decision on lending 224 million euros to Romania for a week. The loan was necessary to fund the works on the second nuclear reactor of the Cernavoda plant and the postponement came as a result of requests from some members of the European Parliament (MEP) in Strasbourg. Resisting the trend in other parts of Europe, which see a dwindling use of atomic energy, Romania wants to double the output of nuclear power by 2010 to contain the effects of shutting down a number of power stations running on coal. The decision of the European Commission to back Romania through the Euratom agency was postponed for March 30, said Teodor Chirica, the director of Nuclearelectrica, the owner of the only nuclear reactor in Romania. “The ecologists in Strasbourg are pressuring harder and harder. They requested the Commission to evaluate the project better before endorsing it,” Chirica told Reuters in an interview. ZF