Hungary's prime minister questioned the agreement with "Rosatom" on the construction of new reactors at the Paks Nuclear Power Plant
Kyiv • UNN
Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar questioned the agreement with Rosatom due to delays and cooling problems. Rosatom assures that work is continuing, but Magyar initiated a full review of the project.
Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar on Thursday questioned a deal struck by his predecessor that provides for the expansion of Hungary’s nuclear power capacity by the Russian state-owned nuclear company "Rosatom." Politico reports, writes UNN.
Details
Several weeks of extreme heat and drought have caused a record drop in the water level of the Danube, reducing production at Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant, which normally supplies about one-third of the country’s electricity, to just over 10%.
These plans were approved despite the fact that nuclear power plants that do not operate with a closed-loop cooling system and are therefore so dependent on their surroundings are no longer being built anywhere in the world
Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev said that the Russian state-owned nuclear company continues to work on schedule on two new reactors at the Paks nuclear power plant, despite the change of government in Hungary in April, when Magyar ousted Russia-friendly Viktor Orbán from power.
According to him, preparations for the concrete foundation of the fifth power unit are more than 80% complete, work on the sixth power unit is ongoing, and the reactor components are already being manufactured.
"We are ready for dialogue," Likhachev said, adding that "Rosatom" had not received any questions from the new Hungarian government.
Several hours later, Magyar questioned this statement. According to him, under the original contract, Paks II was supposed to begin operating back in 2024. Instead, Hungary has spent about 1 trillion forints (€2.8 billion) on a site he described as having only warehouses and "two large concrete pits."
"I don’t really see them complying with the contract," Magyar said. His government is now conducting a full review of the project, including its financing and cooling system.
The review calls into question one of Orbán’s key agreements with Russia. Orbán signed the Paks II deal in Moscow in 2014, awarding Rosatom the project to expand the plant with two reactors, which provided for up to €10 billion in Russian state financing. Two years later, he called the deal the "deal of the century"
The publication notes that these ties remained even after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. As recently as March this year, Orbán’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó acknowledged that he had discussed EU sanctions with senior Russian officials after leaked phone conversations revealed his statements that a bank linked to "Paks" had managed to avoid being included on the sanctions list.