Battery factory could make Hungarian city unlivable

The opposition Mi Hazánk party has pledged to take “firm and hard” action to prevent the planned construction of a battery plant outside Debrecen, in eastern Hungary, adding that the project would make the city “impossible to live in”.

Mi Hazánk deputy leader István Apáti said if the project were to be completed, the city would not have enough drinking water in a few years and property prices would plummet, and “job seekers from the third, fourth worlds would flood the city”.

Apáti insisted that the project was in the interest of “a small, criminal circle”. He said it was “exceptionally audacious” how low the environmental criteria had been set for the plant to be granted a licence, and that the Chinese investor had started construction even before they received the permit. “An investor will only embark on a venture of such magnitude if they are absolutely certain that they can complete it on their own schedule,” he added. Ther latter fact, he said, “made it clear to locals that decision over the project may have long been taken in Budapest and Beijing without asking for their opinion”.