According to the programme, the Krsko power plant should be in operation until 2023, the process of dismantlement should last from 2017 to 2042, underground disposal sites for low- and medium-radiation nuclear waste should be operational as of 2013, while disposal sites for used nuclear fuel, built at a depth of 500 metres should be operational as of 2030.
Croatia should secure an estimated 350 million euros by the end of 2022 for the dismantlement process and waste disposal.
Parliamentary parties believe that the programme should be supported, but that Croatia must fully protect its interests in direct negotiations with Slovenia on where waste disposal sites would be located and who would finance what and with how much money.
Damir Kajin of the Istrian Democratic Party (IDS) went furthest in the debate by calling on Croatian authorities to sell their stakes in Krsko to Slovenia. "Let us sell our rights to Slovenia, and let it take care of dismantlement and waste disposal on its own, because Croatia will split on this issue, just as it has on other issues. It will be everyone against everyone."
Tonci Tadic of the Croatian Party of Rights (HSP) said that Croatia had to obtain guarantees in negotiations with Slovenia that nuclear waste would not be sent to Croatia and that it would stay within the perimeter of the nuclear power plant as long as possible, and that the dismantlement should be as cheap as possible.
Tadic said that Croatia would not have had to agree to co-fund the dismantlement of the Krsko power plant if it had not signed an agreement with Slovenia.
"Slovenia wished for a naive neighbour to pay half the costs, and we made that possible by signing the agreement," the HSP deputy said.
Alenka Kocisa Cicin-Sain of the coalition of the People's Party (HNS) and the Alliance of Primorje and Gorski Kotar (PGS) warned that Croatia had not yet established a Dismantlement Fund, unlike Slovenia which did so in 1999, with capital amounting to more than 100 million euros.
Unlike his predecessors, Peasant Party (HSS) deputy Ante Markov said that Croatia should insist on and defend its half of ownership of the nuclear power plant. "Krsko is our shared property both in terms of energy and in economy terms," Markov said.