Dozens of international environmental organisations have declared the European Commission-backed Danube Hydroelectric Project dangerous, which involves the construction of a dam and power plant on the Danube between the Bulgarian town of Nikopol and the Romanian town of Turnu Magurele.

“This is an old project from the 1980s and was denied even under socialism because its harms far outweighed its benefits,” WWF said in a statement sent to the media.

As many as 38 environmental organisations across Europe, including CEE Bankwatch, “are united in calling on the European institutions to reconsider this decision,” WWF added.

Climate campaigners are astonished by the European Commission’s decision to include the Danube hydroelectric project in its list of priority infrastructure investments despite the high risk of damage to communities, economies and precious ecosystems along the river.

On 30 July, Bulgaria’s National Electricity Company announced that the European Commission had positively assessed the old project, which started under Bulgaria’s totalitarian communist regime.

Bulgaria and Romania plan to jointly build two hydropower plants with a total capacity of 840 MW. The preliminary estimate of the project is around €2 billion. The planned construction period for the hydropower hub is between eight and ten years.

“The project is included in the EU’s List of Cross-Border Renewable Energy Projects,” according to the National Electricity Company (NEC).

The list is subject to final approval and publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. The project will be jointly implemented by the Bulgarian NEK and the Romanian company and financed under the Connecting Europe Facility.

The project includes constructing two run-of-river hydropower plants and a high-capacity electricity storage facility.

“The project focuses on environmental sustainability and renewable energy production while meeting the needs of the local population and industry,” said NEC.

WWF’s position paper states that the Turnu Magurele-Nikopol hydroelectric project will result in the loss of huge amounts of taxpayers’ money and undermine EU-funded environmental achievements.

The NGO warns that the project will threaten the survival of iconic species such as the critically endangered sturgeon.

WWF says the project, planned for the Lower Danube in Bulgaria and Romania, threatens to threaten large areas of farmland and hundreds of settlements along a 280-kilometre stretch of the river.

“The majestic sturgeons symbolise the Danube and part of Europe’s natural heritage. Building this hydropower centre will block their migration route and destroy their last spawning grounds. This could lead to the end of these iconic species,” said Stoyan Mihov, head of WWF’s water programme.

WWF, Bankwatch, and 36 other NGOs are calling on the European Parliament to ask for a two-month extension of the public consultation period on the European Commission’s delegated act, which includes the project on the list of transboundary projects.

(Krassen Nikolov | Euractiv.bg)

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