Hungarian Prime Minister Criticizes Agreement with Rosatom on the Paks Nuclear Power Plant – Politico
Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar has questioned the wisdom of the agreements with the Russian state-owned corporation Rosatom regarding the expansion of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant. The agreement was signed by the government of his predecessor, Viktor Orbán.
The reason for the renewed debate over the project was the prolonged heat wave and drought, which led to a record drop in the water level of the Danube. As a result, electricity production at the Paks Nuclear Power Plant—which typically covers about one-third of the country’s needs—has dropped to just over 10%.
According to Mádár, the decision to build new units was made without taking environmental changes into account.
“These plans were adopted despite the fact that nuclear power plants that do not operate with a closed-loop cooling system and are so vulnerable to environmental influences are no longer being built anywhere in the world,” the Hungarian prime minister stated.
At the same time, Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev assured that the company remains on schedule with the construction of the two new reactors, despite the changes in the Hungarian government in April. According to him, concrete preparation for Power Unit 5 is more than 80% complete, work on Power Unit 6 is ongoing, and the necessary components are already being manufactured. The head of the Russian company expressed his readiness for dialogue and stated that he had not received any inquiries from the new Hungarian government.
Péter Magyar refuted the Russian side’s claims that schedules were being met. He noted that, under the original 2014 contract, the Paks II facility was supposed to begin operations as early as 2024. Instead, Hungary has already spent approximately 1,000 billion forints (2.8 billion euros) on the project, where only warehouses and two excavation pits have been built so far. The Hungarian government is currently conducting a full audit of the project, including an analysis of its financing and cooling systems.
Source: Politico
As a reminder, Hungary is creating a registry of operators barred from public procurement.
