Ader: Paks secrecy to protect citizens

Budapest, March 11 (MTI) – President Janos Ader has underlined the importance of the security surrounding the expansion of Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant, saying that “a nuclear power station is not a bike shed.”

“[I]t is absolutely necessary for data related to its building and operation to be protected and kept secret,” he said, citing the risk of a terrorist attack. “It is also important that only information which guarantees the safety of Hungarian citizens and the safe operation or the plant should enjoy secrecy protection,” he added, commenting on the contract to expand the plant, which has been classified for 30 years.

The president said he had carried out an examination of the constitutionality of the related law passed by parliament with this in mind.

“I established that the law does not conflict with our fundamental law or with legislative regulations,” the president said in a statement issued late on Tuesday.

None of Hungary’s presidents have ever had the possibility of overriding a law passed by parliament on the basis of his own will, or perhaps putting the points of view of others to the fore, he added.

“I regard all this as incumbent upon myself, too…” he said.

Opposition Egyutt will ask the ombudsman for fundamental right to turn to the Constitutional Court with a request that it annul the law on classifying details in the Paks contract for 30 years, Zsuzsanna Szelenyi, who sits in parliament as an independent, and party leader Viktor Szigetvari said in a statement. Ader’s reasoning with reference to the threat of terrorism is mendacious and cynical, they said, adding that Egyutt was not asking for information related to defence and technology to be made public but rather procurement data which would not normally be classified.

“Janos Ader has once again proven that he is no more than a Fidesz cipher who cannot step from out of his own shadow,” the statement said.

Photo: www.napravalo.hu

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters