Press Realease from the Mediterranean Antinuclear Watch, Rhodes, Greece 28 April : On 25th April 2009, just one day before the grim 23rd anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, the area around the projected location of the Belene nuclear power station in Bulgaria was hit by a 5.3 Richter earthquake. According to the Sofia newsagency there was panic in a number of places while in the nearby towns of Svistov and Nikopol residents stayed out of their houses for over an hour. The epicenter of the earthquake was the same as that of the 1977 earthquake that killed 120 people and destroyed over 2/3 of the buildings in Svistov. .

This earthquake represents yet another warning to the Bulgarian government and those who are responsible for financing the construction of this power station. What is striking is that 3 days before the earthquake (22-04-09) at the general meeting of the shareholders of the German RWE company that has undertaken to finance 49% of the project, with a view to calming the anxieties of shareholders, the Chief Executive Officer of RWE Jurgen Grossman announced for the first time that the company will carry out studies on the seismicity of the area.

"Such an announcement is a confession of the irresponsibility with which the construction of this power station is being promoted. Seismicity studied should have been conducted at the beginning of the programme, not now when planning is almost complete and the procedure of issuance of permits is under way," commented the President of the Mediterranean Antinuclear Watch Thanassis Anapolitanos. .

It is worth noting that not only ecological organizations are expressing anxiety. As emerges from the press release of the German Urgewald Organization, at the RWE shareholders' meeting there were considerable numbers of people disapproving of the financing of the Belene project. Most characteristic is the deposition of the Union Investment Group, which owns 4.5. million shares in RWE, which said, among much else: "Participating in the construction of this power station is an act of irresponsibility. It is incomprehensible that the management of RWE should be associating itself with this time bomb."

Let us not forget that in relation to Belene the man who was for many years President of the Bulgarian Atomic Energy Commission Dr. George Katsiev gave an interview in Brussels in which he appealed to the Commission not to approve the project on the grounds of high risk, an appeal which was not heeded. Let us not forget either that two months ago the French energy colossus SUEZ withdrew from financing the Belene project.

In response to these developments the Mediterranean Antinuclear Watch:

1. Notes that the Greek government is obliged, on the basis of the existing international Espoo Convention, which has been signed by Greece and Bulgaria, to demand all the data on the Belene project and to do precisely what is prescribed and imposed by this Convention.

2. Emphasizes the need for rejection of any possible notion of the Greek Public Power Company and/or other relevant bodies being involved in financing this dangerous project. The statement by the Minister for Development on Thursday 23rd April that the subject has not been officially raised by Bulgarian but that the government will take a position if the matter should come up for discussion, is revealing.

3. We ask the \Greek government to give an undertaking that it will not import electricity produced by nuclear reactors and will take political initiatives to prevent the installation of new nuclear power stations in our region.