Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said the US government has allegedly lifted sanctions that were delaying Hungary’s planned expansion of its Paks nuclear power plant in cooperation with Russia’s Rosatom corporation.
“The US has lifted sanctions that blocked the construction of the Paks-2 nuclear power plant. these politically motivated measures were imposed by the Biden administration shortly before Donald Trump took office. I am grateful to the Trump administration as this project will guarantee our future energy supply,” Sijjarto wrote on social media X.
Washington has not yet announced the decision.
As Bloomberg notes,the project, which is led by Hungary’s Russian partner Rosatom Corporation, has been plagued by legal problems and significant delays in recent years. Prime Minister Viktor Orban also frequently clashes with European Union counterparts over his close ties to Russia, which supplies the bulk of Hungary’s energy imports.
The Paks II project was established in 2014 under an intergovernmental agreement between Hungary and Russia for the supply of two VVER-1200 reactors by Rosatom, and most of the project will be financed by a Russian state loan. In July 2020, a licence application was submitted for the Paks 2 nuclear power plant, located 100 kilometres southwest of Budapest on the banks of the Danube.
The four current units of the old Paks NPP – VVER-440 reactors – were built between 1982 and 1987 and produce about half of Hungary’s electricity. Last April, Russia began production of the reactor for the first unit of the plant’s second phase. The new nuclear power plant is planned to be connected to the Hungarian energy system in the early 2030s.