Nuclear energy will be “irreplaceable” in the coming decades until a future of almost net-zero emissions is achieved and Bulgaria must continue to develop it, according to the country’s president Rumen Radev.

Radev told a conference organised by the Bulgarian Atomic Forum (Bulatom) that the European Union cannot achieve its desired strategic autonomy without a sustainable, affordable and predictable price of energy.

He was quoted by the Bulgarian News Agency as saying the EU cannot compete with other major strategic players in the long term, where electricity and natural gas are “several times cheaper and guarantee the stability of their economies.”