Sofia - Bulgarian retail prices went up by 1.1 per ce

Sofia  - Bulgaria will raise guarantees for bank deposits from 20,000 to 5

Brussels - The European Commission on Thursday opened legal proceedings against Italy over its failure to fully implement the European Union's common emergency phone number - 112.

The EU executive, in its role of guardian of the bloc's treaties, also referred Bulgaria and Romania to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for similar failures.

Sofia - Bulgari

Sofia - The retail prices inflation in Bulgaria slowed to 0.1 per cent in August, reaching 6.3 per cent since the start of the year, the National Statistical Institute said Friday.

Sofia  - The Bulgarian government Wednesday launched the construction of the nuclear power plant at Belene, which Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev described as the "largest project in the last 18 years."

The 5.8-billion-dollar plant with two 1,000 megawatt generators is being built on the Danube 220 kilometres northeast of Sofia. Bulgaria already runs the Russian-built Kosloduy plant some 100 kilometres upstream of Belene.

Bulgaria, a member of the European Union since 2007, awarded the Belene project to the Russian firm Atomexportstroy in late 2006. French and German giants Areva and Siemens were hired as sub- contractors in the project.