The European Commissioner for enlargement, Guenter Verheugen, has said the European Union will double its grants for Bulgaria in the next three years, bringing them to over seven-hundred-million dollars.

Speaking in a videotaped address to a conference on the country's progress to EU membership in the capital Sofia, he said the opening of accession talks next spring depended on Bulgaria fulfilling two conditions - early closure of four obsolete reactors at the Kozloduy nuclear plant and meeting a set of economic targets completing privatization and implementing measures to fight corruption.

Mr Verheugen said two other EU hopefuls, Lithuania and Slovakia, had already decided on the early closure of their old nuclear power plants.