Wednesday, October 11, 1995


   PARIS, Oct 11 (Reuter) -- France, eager to appear as a leader in
nuclear safety, proposed on Wednesday that the European Union supply
free power to Bulgaria while security checks are being carried out on
its oldest, controversial nuclear reactor.
   Industry Minister Yves Galland said that supplying Bulgaria with 400
megawatts of electricity would allow it to delay the re-start of the
430-megawatt Kozloduy reactor which has caused concern in the West that
it could trigger a disaster of Chernobyl magnitude.
   "We propose our European partners supply the equivalent of 400
megawatts . . . so that the plant can be stopped, checks carried out and
safety ensured," he told the National Assembly.
   He said existing connections made it possible to transfer power from
western Europe to Bulgaria.
   "We prove through this move that France is an example to the world
concerning nuclear safety," he said.
   France is under widespread attack for resuming nuclear weapons tests
in the South Pacific.
   Galland said the French proposal was made in letters to the current
president of the EU, Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, to European
Commission President Jacques Santer and to the German government.
   Bulgaria has re-started the 440-megawatt number one reactor at the
Kozloduy plant, which had been closed for seven months for safety
checks, saying it cannot dispense with the power as the harsh central
European winter approaches.
   Western experts have voiced concern about the strength of the metal
reactor which was built by Soviet engineers and came into operation in
1974.
   The French Institute for Nuclear Protection and Safety (IPSN) has
said radioactive leaks in case of an accident at the Kozloduy plant
would be of the same magnitude as the disaster caused by the explosion
of the Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine in 1986.