Hungarian foreign minister meets with Rosatom CEO, IAEA DG

Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjártó met with Alexey Likhachev, the CEO of Rosatom, and Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy (IAEA) on Monday.

In a post on Facebook, Szijjártó said he had discussed progress on the Paks II nuclear power plant investment with Likhachev.

“Rosatom’s cooperation with German, French, Swiss, Hungarian and American suppliers as well as partners from other countries is advancing smoothly,” he added.

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In a separate post, Szijjártó said he had discussed the circumstances of the Kursk and Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plants with Grossi and acknowledged the director general’s neutral approach to nuclear challenges.

General conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna

Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said Hungary’s Paks II nuclear power plant project was a good example of how nuclear cooperation could bring back “rationality and common sense”, as well as hope for “a peaceful coexistence”, to global politics, addressing the general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna on Monday.

Szijjártó noted that the Russian general contractor for the Paks II project was working with German, French, American, Swiss and Austrian partners.

He said the two new reactors at the Paks nuclear power plant would raise the country’s share of nuclear to 70pc, while cutting gas consumption by 3bn cubic metres and reducing CO2 emissions by 17m tonnes.

He said 25,000 piles were already in the ground at the site of the Paks II investment, pit excavation was about to start, a thousand workers were on site and the first concrete would be poured by the end of the year. Meanwhile, he added that Hungary was working to extend the lifecycle of the existing four blocks at Paks.

Szijjártó said the nuclear sector could not isolate itself from risks in the “age of dangers”, pointing to the impact on nuclear power plants of the war in Ukraine.

He said the rapidly changing global economy had caused demand for electricity to rise exponentially, adding that nuclear power was the only source of energy that could meet that demand in a cheap, safe and environmentally friendly way. Without nuclear power, the fight against global warming won’t be successful and climate targets won’t be achieved, he said.

Representing the European Union at the meeting, Szijjártó said the EU had attached the “utmost importance” to nuclear safety and advanced a legally binding nuclear safety framework. He added that the development of small modular reactors demanded that the highest level of safety had to be ensured.

He affirmed the EU’s commitment to cooperation with the IAEA.

He called for the IAEA to play a stronger role to ensure the secure delivery of nuclear fuel, adding that no country could obstruct the right of another country over the supply of their own energy mix.

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