Serbia lifts moratorium on nuclear power
by AFP Staff Writers
Belgrade (AFP) Nov 28, 2024

Serbia has removed its decades-old moratorium on nuclear power, according to new legislation passed this week, as the country aims to decarbonise its energy sector in the next 25 years.

The moratorium was struck down amid a raft of bills passed by the parliament on Wednesday.

"After 35 years, the moratorium on the construction of nuclear power plants was lifted," Serbia's energy minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic wrote on social media.

"History was written today," she added.

The bill reverses the ban imposed by the former Yugoslavia three years after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine, when the socialist federation suspended its nuclear programme and shuttered its single research reactor in Belgrade's suburbs.

Serbia has mostly relied on its plentiful sources of cheap coal to power its economy, even as it choked its skies with the capital Belgrade, often ranked as one of the most polluted cities during the winter months.

Serbia is facing a 2050 EU deadline to transition away from coal.

But a shift to nuclear power is likely to be a long and expensive process, with a recent government study saying a cautious estimate for the launch of a new nuclear facility would likely take up to two decades.

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