"Bulgaria has pledged to close units 3 and 4 in 2006 and we do not shrink from this. There will be losses, however, which must be compensated," Energy Minister Milko Kovatchev said in an interview with bTV television.

"Bulgaria should be compensated for economic and social losses," he said.

Public opinion opposes shutting the reactors down in a country which gets nearly half its electricity needs from the country's only nuclear plant.

Eleven EU experts arrived in Bulgaria on Sunday to inspect Kozloduy, 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of Sofia.

Bulgaria closed the two oldest reactors at Kozloduy at the end of 2002 at the urging of the EU, which argued that they posed a security risk.

Two Soviet-era 440-megawatt reactors are due to be shut down in 2006 under an agreement with the EU made during the course of Bulgaria's accession negotiations with the bloc, which it hopes to join in 2007.

Authorities have since modernised those two reactors and installed a cooling system designed to prevent any radioactive leakage in case of an accident, to allay EU concerns.

The United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has found that the safety mechanisms at the two reactors meet all their requirements.

If the EU team reaches the same conclusion as the IAEA in their report due out early in 2004, Bulgaria will seek a delay on the date set for the closure of the reactors before it concludes its accession negotiations with the EU towards the middle of 2004.

The reactors were installed between 1981 and 1982, with a projected life span of 30 years.

The director of the plant, Yordan Kostadinov, says their capacity depends on the continued use of the two reactors it must shut down.

WAR.WIRE