The Slovenian-Croatian commission on the joint Krsko nuclear power plant which met on Monday did not reach a consensus on whether to build a joint radioactive waste storage facility in Vrbina near Krsko, Slovenia, meaning that Croatia would continue with plans to build its own facility near its border with Bosnia.

The meeting discussed the successful operation of the co-owned power plant and possibilities for storing medium- and low-level radioactive waste from Krsko, but a consensus on a joint storage facility in Vrbina has not been reached for now, Croatian Environment and Energy Minister, Tomislav Coric, and Slovenian Infrastructure Minister, Alenka Bratusek, said at news conference.

Launched in 1983, the Krsko nuclear power plant was the only such facility built in Yugoslavia before the dissolution of the country in the early 1990s. Today it is jointly managed and owned by Croatia and Slovenia, who also share the electricity output produced at the plant.

The power from Krsko accounts for around 25 percent of Slovenia’s and some 16 percent of Croatia’s electricity consumption.

The two countries are also responsible for taking care of the plant’s waste. Slovenia announced plans to build a radioactive waste storage facility in Vrbina near Krsko, and proposed that Croatia should also store its share of waste from the Krsko plant there. The plan would also involve Croatia’s investment in the joint storage facility.

However, Croatia already announced plans to build its own storage facility in central Croatia, near the town of Dvor, close to the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“Currently there is no consensus on a joint solution, but we remain open to talks with Croatia in accordance with the agreement between the two countries,” Bratusek said.

Croatia’s minister Coric said that the idea was problematic for Croatia for several reasons, including that a new site in Vrbina would only store radioactive waste from the Krsko plant, i.e. it would not be used for other types of radioactive waste produced in Croatia’s hospitals or science institutes.

“If Croatia agrees to a joint storage facility in Vrbina, it would have to build a facility to store medical and other radioactive waste in its own territory, which would not make any sense… We want a comprehensive solution to cover all types of (radioactive) waste,” Coric said.

Coric said that Croatia was planning to build a new purpose-built Cerkezovac site near Dvor, near the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina – but added that a joint facility with Slovenia would not be ruled out either, depending on “how talks with Slovenia would proceed.”

“Regardless of that, our preparations for Cerkezovac will continue,” Coric added.

In reply to reporters’ questions about Bosnia’s vocal opposition to the prospect of Croatia’s waste facility so close to the border, Coric said that Croatia was aware of objections to the plan in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and added that the matter would be discussed with Bosnia during the preparation of a study on the planned site’s environmental impact.

Asked why other types of Croatia’s medium- and low-level radioactive waste could not be stored in the planned facility in Vrbina, Bratusek said that under the existing legislation only the radioactive waste produced by the nuclear power plant itself could be stored within its grounds.

She added that the issue of radioactive waste should be resolved by 2025 at the latest, as Croatia’s share of nuclear waste from Krsko would no longer be allowed to be stored within the Krsko power plant complex, which is how all waste is stored today.