Opposition calls for terminating Paks nuclear plant upgrade

The united opposition on Tuesday called on the government to terminate the Hungarian-Russian contract on the upgrade of the Paks nuclear power plant, in view of the Russian attack on Ukraine.

László Lóránt Keresztes, the parliamentary group leader of LMP, said Russian disregard for nuclear security was apparent in President Vladimir Putin’s decision to put nuclear forces on alert, in the Russian army’s attack on nuclear waste disposal sites and occupation of the nuclear plant’s premises in Chernobyl.

Keresztes said a nuclear waste management site “cannot be set up” near a city as it is planned near Pécs, in southern Hungary.

György Buzinkay, of the Momentum Movement, said a strong and independent Ukraine was in Hungary’s interest, partly because it would “keep Russia as far away from us as possible”.

“The EU, NATO and Hungary itself has to provide all aid in its power to help Ukraine in defeating the dictator Putin,” he said.

Buzinkay also called for the formerly Moscow-based International Investment Bank (IIB), “and the spies employed there”, to be expelled from Hungary, and for freezing the Hungarian assets of “Russian oligarchs”.