Romanian and Bulgarian officials met Wednesday to try and defuse mounting tension between the two neighbouring countries over Bulgaria's plan to build a nuclear power plant near the Danube

Romanian and Bulgarian officials met Wednesday to try and defuse mounting tension between the two neighbouring countries over Bulgaria's plan to build a nuclear power plant near the Danube. Representatives and experts from each country met in the southern Romanian town of Turnu Magurele where residents demonstrated against the project which they claim could lead to a nuclear catastrophe similar to the 1986 disaster in Chernobyl. Some of the demonstrators carried placards that read "We don't want another Chernobyl", "No to radioactive pollution", the Rompers news agency reported. Romania, which like Bulgaria is hoping to join the European Union in 2007, is concerned about the environmental impact of the planned project and is insisting that it meet European standards. In a petition entitled "Stop the nightmare", Liviu Dragnea, the head of the regional council in Teleorman, in southern Romania, said the region was faced with "the worst threat in its recent history" and listed the potential threats from the Bulgarian project. However, Teodor Chirica, head of the Romanian atomic energy forum, defended the project saying that it could not be compared with Chernobyl, the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster. The Bulgarian government decided at the end of 2002 to relaunch the project to build a nuclear plant at Belene that was begun in 1987 but abandoned the idea three years later after pressure from environmentalists. The state had invested 1.3 billion dollars (1.04 billion euros) in infrastructure and had bought a Czech 1,000 megawatt water pressure reactor.