Paks II Nuclear Power Plant construction start announced
The first concrete for the upgrade of the Paks nuclear power plant will be poured by early February 2026, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in Moscow on Wednesday, after talks with Alexey Likhachev, the director general of Rosatom.
In a statement issued by his ministry, Szijjártó said the pouring of the concrete would be a “milestone” in the Paks II project, officially qualifying the blocks as “under construction” according to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) standards.
He added that the fifth and sixth blocks at Paks would go online at the start of the 2030s. Szijjártó said the construction of the additional blocks would ensure Hungarian households continued to pay the lowest gas prices in Europe.
Read also:
- Rosatom’s big win: How they secured the green light to power Hungary’s next nuclear giants
- Hungary to install U.S.-developed modular nuclear reactors: Is energy sovereignity coming?
Hungary sticking to safe energy supply, Europe’s lowest gas prices, says Szijjártó
Hungary’s government is committed to ensuring the country’s secure energy supply as well as keeping household gas prices the lowest in the European Union, said in a panel discussion at Russian Energy Week in Moscow on Wednesday.
Szijjártó told the panel that European leaders were “going crazy” when they suggested that “diversification” meant swapping out one source of energy for another, in a statement issued by his ministry. He added that the Hungarian government aimed to have as many sources of supply and delivery routes as possible. He said Hungary saw energy supply not as a “political or ideological” matter but one of “physics, mathematics and experience”. He added that some sources of energy would remain “a dream” without adequate infrastructure for their delivery.
He complained that Brussels wanted Hungary to swap out its cheap and dependable sources of energy for dearer and less secure sources and warned that putting the country’s energy supply at risk was also a challenge to its sovereignty.
Szijjártó said Hungary would continue to exercise its sovereign right to put together its energy mix in a way that benefited the country. At present, Hungary’s energy supply is safe, with a long-term contract with Gazprom as well as contracts for deliveries from Shell and ENGIE on the delivery of LNG, he added.
He said eliminating the TurkStream gas pipeline or the Druzhba crude pipeline from the picture would not leave Hungary with enough infrastructure to ensure its safe energy supply. “This is not rocket science,” he added.
Szijjártó acknowledged Russia’s energy cooperation with Hungary and said supplies had been dependable and had been adjusted according to need. He said it was in Hungary’s national interest to ensure the country’s safe energy supply and maintain the lowest gas prices in Europe for households. He added that patriotic political parties in Europe were gaining strength, heralding a return to “rationality and common sense”.
- Click for more articles concerning the Paks Nuclear Power Plant project