Chlorine emissions from the massive Romanian plant at Giurgui during
the past three months have soured relations between the two Balkan states.
The Bulgarian government has protested to the Romanian ambassador in Sofia,
and the pollution was discussed by the countries’ environment ministers
last month.

The Romanians say that the Giurgui works stopped producing chlorine
in July 1988. They also say there is greater potential danger from Bulgaria’s
two nuclear power plants at Kozlodui and Bellene in seismic zones further
up the Danube. A joint committee of experts was set up last month to discover
exactly which chemicals are polluting Rousse and Giurgui and suggest control
and measurement methods. Local residents are still awaiting the outcome.

‘The Romanian side is being rather evasive,’ said Evgenii Nazerov, head
doctor at Rousse City Hospital. ‘We have established good contacts with
Romanian doctors but officials have not told us what the Giurgui plant actually
±è°ù´Ç»å³Ü³¦±ð²õ.’

The Giurgui Chemical Combined Works was set up under former leader Nicolae
Ceausescu. Bulgarian environmentalists suspect it produced chemical weapons
which were sold to Iraq. ‘Until we have complete information about the plant’s
activities, it’s difficult not to think the worst,’ one leading environmentalist
said.

Monitoring stations in Rousse regularly show airborne chlorine ion concentrations
way above accepted safety levels. Nitrogen dioxide concentrations are also
high.

Pollution has continued for eight years and has taken its toll on residents’
health. When concentrations were at their height in spring 1988 the city
had four times the national average of lung disease and high rates of conjunctivitis
and dermatitis.

After local protests, the Bulgarian government pressurised Romania to
halt chlorine emissions. Pollution has never again reached 1988 levels but
the concentration of chlorine has increased recently.

More than 40 people were seized, including 10 passers-by and a Soviet
delegate to one of the conference’s parallel events. All were later freed.
Those arrested included Ecoglasnost secretary and Sofia city councillor
Alexander Karakachanov, who had hospital treatment for severe bruising and
abrasions of the back and neck. Other detainees complained of damaged kidneys,
cracked ribs and broken fingers.

The arrests and assaults caused a row at the environment meeting of
the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Two sessions
were suspended while delegates criticised the militia’s actions, the first
time this has happened at a CSCE event.

Some delegations, including Britain, indicated that they might withdraw
from the meeting or refuse to sign the concluding document unless the Bulgarian
government provided a satisfactory explanation. Richard Smith, head of the
delegation from the US, said his country was unlikely to sign the final
document under such circumstances.

Next day, Bulgaria’s environment minister, Nikolai Dyulgerov, admitted
that the security forces had overstepped the mark. Delegates accepted the
statement, but many demanded assurances that these incidents would not happen
again.

The US immediately submitted a strongly worded proposal calling for
independent unofficial environmental groups to be given the right to exist,
express their views and function without harassment. This proposal is likely
to be incorporated into the Sofia meeting’s final document.

Ecoglasnost had capitalised on the unusually tolerant atmosphere in
Sofia resulting from the presence of hundreds of foreign diplomats and journalists.
The group held three public meetings, each attracting more than 1000 people.

During the first two weeks of the three-week conference, Ecoglasnost
collected more than 9000 signatures on a petition calling for more public
consultation about a hydropower and irrigation scheme to divert some of
the south-flowing Mesta river away from Greece to Bulgaria’s Trakia Plain.
Ecoglasnost says the project will destroy nature reserves and raise the
water table around Bulgaria’s second city, Plovdiv.

In a surprise move, Yordan Yotov, a senior official of Energoproekt,
the Bulgarian firm in charge of the project, addressed one of Ecoglasnost’s
public meetings, calling for dialogue. Ecoglasnost responded by inviting
Yotov to a public debate.

Denise Searle and Mike Power, Sofia

Britain and the US are already providing economic aid to Poland and
Hungary as the countries move towards more Western-style democracy. But
other nations are pressing for assistance to be channelled through an international
environment fund.

The proposals were made in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, last week at
the environment meeting of the 35-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation
in Europe. The three-week gathering is part of the Helsinki and Vienna processes,
which aim to improve relations between NATO and Warsaw Pact countries.

The theme of the meeting is international cooperation over pollution
of rivers and lakes which affect more than one country. It also aims to
establish conventions on hazardous chemicals and industrial accidents. The
main differences are over scope and effectiveness.

Details of most proposals are restricted to the meeting’s closed sessions.
But suggestions which have been revealed include conventions to cover each
of Europe’s major river systems.

Norway, Sweden and Finland want Europe to adopt agreements mirroring
the one covering Scandinavia’s major waterways under which signatories must
keep water quality within agreed standards and not affect river flows without
consulting other signatories.

Bulgaria and West Germany are proposing a special convention to cover
the countries along the Danube. Speakers from scientific institutes in Bulgaria
and the Soviet Union said that the river was too polluted to be used for
irrigation along its lower reaches and that the Danubian herring, found
where the river flows into the Black Sea, was almost extinct.

Poland is pressing for special treatment for frontier zones. Poland
is in dispute with its neighbour Czechoslovakia, which plans to build Europe’s
biggest coking plant 2 kilometres from the Polish border.

The Soviet Union has called for mutual inspections of neighbouring countries’
factories to check on pollution levels. Commercial considerations make some
Western countries wary of the idea, although Paul Davies of Britain’s Health
and Safety Executive explained to New ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ that there were already
procedures for international inspections over factory safety. ‘As in safety
inspections, you should be able to examine a plant’s environmental performance
without infringing on sensitive technical processes,’ he said.

Although the Sofia conference is supposed to deal with the environment
in Europe as a whole, the problems of Eastern Europe have emerged as a key
cause for concern. This has been encouraged by the new frankness of the
Soviet Union, Poland and Hungary in admitting their ecological troubles
and acknowledging that they need Western help.

‘The problems in Eastern Europe really have to be seen to be believed,’
said Walter Van Dieren, director of Amsterdam’s Environment and System Analysis
Institute. ‘I’m not for one minute saying that everything in Western Europe
is fine but things are much worse in the East. Most of the industrial areas
still have smogs like those of London in the 1950s.’ Much of this pollution
creeps into Western Europe and Scandinavia. ‘One guilder spent on solving
environmental problems in East Germany is worth five spent in the Netherlands,
in terms of the effect on the environment,’ said Van Dieren.

The proposed European Environmental Agency (This Week, last issue) could
be a vehicle for this aid. The European Community agreed in September to
set up the agency. Britain would prefer to see the agency operating before
inviting in Eastern European countries. Others, such as France, want to
involve the East.