TEN billion dollars needed for the construction of the first Serbian nuclear power plant is an impressive amount for Belgrade, but as the Bible says, the door is open only to those who knock on it, and Vučić’s statement is the same knock, RIA Novosti writes regarding the statement of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić ready to build a nuclear power plant and negotiate with the Russian corporation Rosatom.
Photo: Tanjung/Kremlin Pool Photo via AP
The agency estimates that Russia cannot afford to work according to the Soviet method, when the allies in the Warsaw Bloc were practically overwhelmed with money, but it believes that Rosatom and the Ministry of Finance will undoubtedly find proposals that would be useful for both sides.
“We are witnessing a historical shift”
– We are witnessing a historic shift, when political influence for many years was not determined by the deployment of another military base, but by the construction of key production facilities, capable not only of making a profit for the country, but also of enabling it to demonstrate its will to its neighbors.
He concludes that Serbia was not the first to understand that, but it had enough independence and common sense to draw the right conclusion.
The agency states in the text that in the analysis of the justification for the construction of the nuclear power plant, one should start from the fact that Serbia does not need its own nuclear power plant at first sight.
Because, as they state, “the fact is that our historical ally, which has a modest territory and a population of seven million people, has everything necessary for a comfortable life,” and that the construction of a nuclear power plant is expensive.
As an example, they cite the Belarusian nuclear power plant, which cost Minsk ten billion dollars, which Moscow set aside in the form of a favorable loan, and they say that for Belgrade, given the amount of foreign debt, the construction of a nuclear power plant could be a danger to state finances.
Moreover, Serbs not only fully satisfy their own needs for electricity, which is an incredible luxury in pandemic Europe, but they also sell it abroad, “RIA writes.
He states that Serbia exported six terawatt-hours of electricity last year and that Belgrade earned close to 50 million dollars on those exports.
The fact that Serbia is in the middle of the other ten countries in terms of proven coal reserves is also emphasized, which, as it is estimated, is not bad for a small country, such as Serbia.
However, it is pointed out that Serbia is losing its position on the European electricity supply market, which RIA Novosti explains by the trend of coal rejection and mass transition of European countries to natural gas.
Another factor, according to RIA Novosti, stopped Vučić’s team, because Belgrade, as soon as it was officially announced that the Turkish Stream project was approved, immediately applied to participate in it.
Moreover, the construction of the Serbian section of 400 km was completed in a record 32 days, and today this part of the flow is already in operation, and natural gas is pumped into Hungary every day through it.
This enabled Budapest to refuse transit through Ukraine, with which it has a long-standing conflict due to the violation of the rights of the inhabitants of Transcarpathia.
From January 2021, Gazprom additionally started the delivery of gas to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia is again a key transit country, states RIA Novosti and adds that the situation with coal is much more complicated.
They estimate that if Poland, as another country in which this type of fuel is the main one, can count on significant financial assistance from Brussels in its energy transition, then Serbs can only rely on themselves.
Aleksandar Vučić attends all key meetings
For that very reason, the agency points out, Aleksandar Vučić is attending all key events related to energy in Russia and states that he participated in the Russian Energy Week a month ago.
He then met with Vladimir Putin and described the situation with electricity in Europe as terrible due to the sudden jump in prices.
The text notes that another important event has taken place since then, and that is that the Belarusian nuclear power plant, built by Russian experts, has reached the projected level of production.
And not only that, but it turned out that the Belarusian megawatts are of vital importance for Ukraine, and even for the traditionally hostile Baltic.
It is estimated that Russia actually implemented a complex technical project in the very center of Europe and with only a few reactors changed not only the energy, but also the cross-border political balance, and Belarus became a key player in the region with a peaceful atom.
At the same time, the construction of the Turkish nuclear power plant “Akuju” is in full swing.
The agency estimates that Russia cannot afford to work according to the Soviet method, when the allies in the Warsaw Bloc were practically overwhelmed with money, but it believes that Rosatom and the Ministry of Finance will undoubtedly find proposals that would be useful for both sides.
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