Paks nuclear plant project

PM Orbán calls for protecting future of Europe in Vienna

Kurz Orbán Hungary Austria

Migration poses the greatest threat to Europe’s future, which should be protected, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in Vienna on Tuesday after talks with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

“There exists a Christian culture and a way of life, which we would like to protect”, Orbán told a press conference, stressing the need to preserve Europe’s identity and Christian foundations.

The Schengen regime can also be protected “if we want to protect it”, Orbán said. He emphasised that the external borders of the Schengen area should remain closed while the internal ones should continue to be kept open.

Orbán said Kurz had been a “good partner” to Hungary on the issue of migration even back during his tenure as foreign minister, noting that Kurz had agreed with the need to seal the Western Balkan migration route. When things got tough for Hungary, Austria sent police and border patrol officers to help protect the southern border, he noted.

The prime minister said he and Kurz were in agreement that migrant quotas were an ineffective way to handle the migration crisis.

No one who entered Europe illegally can be allowed to stay, the prime minister said.

Orbán said he did not see a strong enough commitment from countries of the inner Schengen area to protect the Schengen rules. He said Europe’s migrant redistribution mechanism “is also destroying Schengen”, arguing that the EU was also trying to force it onto countries that protect their borders from illegal migrants. Orbán expressed hope that the EU would “get back on the right path” in terms of the migration issue. This is why he said the debate on a new asylum system would be important, adding that it could not be handled independently from border protection.

Kurz agreed that the EU’s migrant redistribution scheme had proven ineffective and that illegal migration must be stopped. Hungary and Austria “are heading in the same direction” when it comes to protecting the EU’s external borders. Kurz called for a new European asylum system and said that receiving countries should be the ones to decide whom they want to admit.

The chancellor also agreed on the need to preserve and strengthen the Schengen system. He noted that that the abolition of internal borders was one of the crucial founding elements of the European Union.

On another subject, Orbán said Europe was in the middle of a realignment.

One of the elements of this process is central Europe’s transformation into the EU’s engine of growth, he insisted. “Over the next ten years, it’ll be our job to do everything we can for the continued strengthening of central Europe, so that it can become a key region in the EU,” Orbán said.

Commenting on Austria’s announcement earlier this month that it will lodge an appeal with the European Court of Justice over the planned upgrade of the Paks nuclear power plant, Orbán said the project was not an Austrian-Hungarian issue but a European one to be settled by European legal forums. He said that Hungary would make every possible effort to ensure that the difference in opinions about nuclear energy does not harm bilateral relations.

Outside the Federal Chancellery Orbán was met by Greenpeace activists protesting against the Paks upgrade.

Commenting on Austria’s family support system, Orbán said he had asked Kurz to ensure that Hungarians working in Austria receive fair treatment. The European Commission is the guardian of treaties and if it learns of developments that go against the European Treaty, it is obliged to take action. Brussels will fulfil its duty and once an EU decision is made, “we will accept it”, he said.

Orbán noted the significance of motorway links between the two countries and successful economic cooperation, adding that Austria is one of the most important investors in Hungary and both sides profit from close business ties.

Asked about his meeting with Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, Orbán said Strache’s Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) played an important role in the Austrian government. He called it natural that he would meet every important political leader. As FPO holds security-related portfolios, the talks will also cover the issue of security, he added.

In response to another question, Orbán said “experience shows that whenever Liberals are not included in a government,” they say it is the end of democracy. “We will refuse any ideological trend to identify itself with democracy,” he said, adding that “real democracy is democracy without an attribute”.

featured image: MTI

GE Hungary signs EUR 793m Paks turbine contract

paks

GE Hungary has signed a 793 million euro contract on the delivery of turbines for two new blocks at the Paks nuclear power plant, according to reports in the Russian press.

GE Hungary signed the contract with ASE, a unit of Rosatom, the general contractor for the project.

A consortium led by the local unit of General Electric was reported to have won the tender to supply the turbines a week earlier.

GE Hungary, partnering with GE unit Alstom Power Systems, beat Russia’s Silovye Mashiny in the tender.

Hungary is upgrading its sole nuclear power plant with credit from Russia.

Paks upgrade on schedule despite Austrian objection

atomic energy paks radioactive

The construction of two new blocks at Hungary’s Paks nuclear plant will begin in February according to schedule, despite Austria’s recent objection to the plant’s expansion, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó has said.

The project in its entirety, together with the requisite investments, will go ahead according to the set deadlines, Szijjártó told Russian news agency TASS on the sidelines of an international conference in Tromso, in Norway.

The Austrian government announced on Monday that it is lodging its objection to the project at the top EU court.

Austria’s environment ministry said it would ask the European Court of Justice to annul the European Commission’s resolution approving the nuclear power plant’s expansion. Austria will question whether the commission’s decision serves the bloc’s interests.

In the TASS interview released on Wednesday, Szijjártó said Austria’s appeal to the EU court will not have any bearing on the upgrade, which will be proceeding as scheduled.

Hungary signed an agreement in January 2014 on the construction of two blocks at the Paks nuclear power plant by Russia’s Rosatom. Russia is lending Hungary 10 billion euros to cover 80 percent of the project’s costs.

Hungarian government stands by Paks upgrade

paks

The Hungarian government stands by the upgrade of the Paks nuclear power plant, which aims to maintain the plant’s capacity, the Prime Minister’s Office said on Monday. 

Earlier in the day, Austria‘s environment ministry said the Austrian government would lodge an appeal with the European Court of Justice over the upgrade of the Paks plant. The ministry said it would ask the court to annul the European Commission’s resolution approving the nuclear power plant’s expansion. Austria will question whether the commission’s decision serves the interests of the community, the ministry said.

The Austrian ministry of the environment believes that is the only case in which supporting nuclear energy would be acceptable, it said.

The Vienna government refuses the arguments put forward by Budapest and believes there are other sources that could cover Hungary’s energy needs, the ministry added.

In a statement, the PM’s Office said the upgrade project was being implemented with the oversight and authorisation of EU, Hungarian and international authorities.

The Austrian appeal has no impact on the EC’s approval of the upgrade and the project will go forward without interruption, the office said.

It said the Austrian government’s announcement was to be expected, noting that its opposition to nuclear power had already been made clear when it filed a lawsuit against the European Commission for its approval of the UK providing state aid to the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station project. The PM’s Office said

Hungary would be backing the EC and the UK government in that lawsuit.

The EC started a probe into state aid given to the Paks upgrade in November 2014 and approved the project, to be financed with Russian credit, in the spring of 2017.

Substation malfunction shuts down Paks nuclear power plant block

Paks nuclear plant

A technical malfunction at a 400kV substation caused an automatic shutdown of one of the Paks nuclear power plant’s four blocks early on Monday. 

The automatic safety system shut down the number three block at 8.44am, the operator said.

MVM Paksi Atomerőmű communications director Antal Kovács noted that the malfunction was not at the plant itself but at a substation off site.

The cause of the malfunction is being investigated, he said. The block is expected to be restarted in the first half of next week, he added.

As we wrote last Monday, the fourth block of Hungary’s single nuclear power plant in Paks is sinking, the group leader of the opposition Socialist Party said, adding that this was “a serious cause for concern”.

Photo: atomeromu.hu

Green opposition LMP to appeal to international organisations against ‘unsafe’ Paks upgrade

atomic energy paks radioactive

The green opposition LMP party will appeal to the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over the upgrade of Hungary’s sole nuclear power plant at Paks, a board member said on Tuesday.

The project carries safety risks and is wasteful, Péter Ungár told a press conference.

He made reference to earlier reports indicating a pending permission due to geological hazard posed by a tectonic rift under the planned construction site.

Ungár expressed further concern over the quality of soil for containing loess, saying that as a result the plant’s fourth block had already been subsiding.

Hungary signed the agreement on the construction of the two further blocks at Paks by Rosatom in January 2014. Russia is lending Hungary 10 billion euros to cover 80 percent of the project’s costs.

The minister in charge of the project said in November last year that the preparatory work for the expansion would begin in 2018 and the construction itself in 2020.

The company in charge of the upgrade project responded by saying that the insignificant subsiding had been prevalent at the fourth block as a built structure over the past decades as would normally occur with any built structure.

The geological condition of the site has been continuously monitored by a line of 130 control stations over decades, MVM Paks said, noting that the subsidence of the fourth block had slowed to measure less than one milimetre in 2017.

The subsidence will not pose any risk either to the block’s structure or its operation and will not endanger the nuclear plant’s technology, Antal Kovács, the communications director of Paks, told MTI.

Kovács noted that the National Atomic Energy Office (OAH) had extended the operating life of the fourth block for another 20 years in December last year, after which “rumours had started to spread regrettably in the press about the subsiding of the block”, causing fear.

Paks block 4 sinking, says Socialist MP

Paks nuclear plant

The fourth block of Hungary’s single nuclear power plant in Paks is sinking, the group leader of the opposition Socialist Party said on Monday, adding that this was “a serious cause for concern”. 

Speaking at a press conference, Bertalan Tóth said

the block’s sinking had been reported in the National Atomic Energy Office’s (OAH) December decision to extend the block’s operating life for another 20 years.

Tóth said the causes of the block’s sinking were unknown, adding that it could not be predicted how it would affect the operations of the plant’s new blocks. He said he would submit a data request on the subject to OAH and Paks Atomeromu, the company handling the upgrade of the plant.

Tóth said he had also submitted questions in the matter to National Development Minister Miklos Seszták and János Süli, minister without portfolio in charge of the upgrade. The MP said he had asked how the block’s sinking would affect the construction of the fifth and sixth blocks. Tóth said he also sought to find out whether the Hungarian people were safe and if there was any threat of the Paks project becoming “a second Chernobyl”.

The four blocks at the Paks plant account for almost 53 percent of domestic electricity generation.

Photo: atomeromu.hu

Opposition LMP: Hungary in ‘eleventh hour’ to stop Paks project

paks

Hungary is “in the eleventh hour” to stop the upgrade of the country’s sole nuclear power plant in Paks, a board member of green opposition LMP said on Tuesday.

The project can only be thwarted if the current government is ousted in the upcoming election, Péter Ungár told a press conference.

While there have been international examples of nuclear plants not going online over protests, Hungary should try to avert such a situation, Ungár said. Instead, voters will have the option of either voting against the Paks plant or for continuing “the pact between [Prime Minister Viktor] Orbán and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin”.

Ungár criticised the drawdown of a 38 million dollar Russian loan, saying that it was still unknown how this would be spent.

Several members of government have admitted that Hungary had a number of more favourable options for financing the Paks upgrade from the market, he added.

On the subject of Russia’s Power Machines (Siloviye Mashiny) challenging the result of a tender to deliver turbines for the plant, Ungar insisted that the only reason why the contract had not been awarded to a Russian bidder was because the government wanted to avoid a lawsuit from the American and German companies that won the tender.

He said that contrary to the government’s insistence, the share of Hungarian suppliers involved in the upgrade would not reach 40 percent.

Paks block 4 lifespan extended

Paks nuclear plant

The National Atomic Energy Office (OAH) has extended the operating life of block 4 of Hungary’s single nuclear power plant in Paks, 100 kilometres south of Budapest, for another 20 years.

The block went online in 1987 and its current permit was to expire on December 31, 2017.

The lifespan of the plant’s third block was extended last December.

The OAH earlier extended the lifespans of the plant’s number one and number two blocks by another two decades past the originally planned 30 years.

The four blocks at the Paks plant account for almost 53 percent of domestic electricity generation.

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Photo: atomeromu.hu

Head of NKE University sees ‘concerted campaign’ behind LMP’s ‘attacks’

nke

Responding to political opposition accusations of financial impropriety, András Patyi, the rector of the National Public Service University (NKE), on Sunday complained that he and the university were victims of a “concerted” smear campaign against them. 

Green opposition LMP co-leader Ákos Hadházy has accused the NKE of soliciting EU funding multiple times for identical projects, overpricing and unjustified spending. He said

EU auditors had raised the alarm over “extremely serious abuses” suspected at the university, adding that Patyi may bear criminal responsibility. 

Patyi said in a statement yesterday that the university “has nothing to hide” and was open to investigation.

LMP recently published a list of public figures that the party plans to make the subject of criminal proceedings, and Patyi was on the list both in his capacity as NKE rector and the head of the national election committee.

Patyi said he was shocked not only about the number of attacks but also about “their crude nature which lack any professionalism”.

He said attacks against him conflated his roles as rector and head of the election office. This, he said, was borne out by a leaked list of public figures in which he was singled out as someone who “prevents referendums”. LMP has made numerous failed attempts to launch referendums on the expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant, he noted.

Patyi said

the NKE drew EU funding in cooperation with at least fifty partners, including 15 universities. Hadházy’s “empty attacks” were therefore “made against the scientific community”, he insisted. 

He dismissed the accusations regarding spending on “unnecessary research” and “overpricing”.

NKE does not employ subcontractors and the projects only make use of NKE employees and other higher education institutions as well as government offices, he added.

Patyi accused LMP of fabricating news of an EU audit. The EU only asked certain questions which the university answered, and the issue was closed, he said.

Patyi said LMP’s attacks would not prevent the university from continuing its “diverse educational activities, research and developments that aim to improve the competitiveness of Hungary’s public administration”.

The construction of the NKE Ludovika Campus will continue, he said. This includes revamping a one-time fencing club and building public sport facilities in Orczy Park where the university is located, he added.

 

Hadházy said in response today that if Patyi had nothing to hide, then he should make public the questions raised by the EU controllers and the university’s responses concerning the use of EU funds by the institution. In a statement, the LMP politician said that contrary to Patyi’s claims that LMP’s criticisms were purely political, the authorities had started an investigation against the university for abuse of funds.

At a press conference on May 8, the university’s leaders said they had published all documents concerning development projects that had come under attack on the university website. Patyi stated they involved no irregularities.

Paks papers leave LMP candidate dissatisfied

paks

Bernadett Szél, PM candidate of the opposition LMP party, voiced dissatisfaction after looking into the implementation documents of the Paks nuclear plant upgrade project, on Tuesday.

“I am not much closer to my goal,” Szél told a press conference, and insisted that the documents had failed to provide answers to her questions as to “who, when, how much and on what” spent taxpayers’ money “under the pretext of the (Paks) project”. She also insisted that she had been denied the budget figures reflecting payments so far.

Szél said that she had been shown an earlier implementation schedule, while the government has in the meantime sent a more recent version to the European Union.

Szél said that a “massive part” of the document was classified, and suggested that not making the document public was in the interest of the Russian party in the project.

Attila Aszódi, state secretary in charge of the upgrade project, said that all Szél’s questions had been answered. He insisted that Szél had had access to the effective plans, but added that the implementation schedule was being updated.

Concerning the document’s classification, Aszódi said that “it might be declassified after it is updated unless transparency is against the interests of the general contractors”.

New Paks blocks will be highly safe

atomic energy paks radioactive

The two new blocks to be constructed for Hungary’s sole nuclear power plant at Paks will meet the highest safety standards, a senior official of Russia‘s energy company Rosatom told a conference in Budapest on Monday.

The blocks will be up to the rigorous safety standards specified after the Fukushima disaster, Kirill Komarov, the first deputy CEO of the company that is the contractor for the Paks upgrade project, told the conference entitled “Atomex-Europe”.

Rosatom has never offered projects that had not been implemented in Russia before to its foreign partners, he said.

Concerning the upgrade of the Paks plant, he noted that 40 percent of the suppliers would be selected from among Hungarian companies via public procurement, in a transparent way.

Addressing the conference, János Süli, the minister in charge of the project, said that

the preparatory work would begin in 2018 and the construction itself in 2020.

Hungary signed the agreement on the construction of the two blocks by Rosatom in January 2014. Russia is lending Hungary 10 billion euros to cover 80 percent of the project’s costs.

LMP: Paks upgrade not in Europe’s interests

paks

The project to upgrade Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant is not in the interests of the European community, Bernadett Szél, PM candidate of the green opposition LMP party, told a press conference held in front of the European Parliament, in Brussels, on Thursday.

Szél argued that the project to build two reactor blocks in addition to the existing plant would lead to a “natural, social, and economic upheaval”.

“Renewable energy is crucial for Hungary,” Szél said, adding that the country’s politics also needed renewing.

On another subject, Szél said that Hungary would benefit from European Union funding amounting to 2,700 billion forints (EUR 8bn) in 2017 alone. Yet the country’s annual GDP growth was only around 3 percent. She said a change in government would bring about “a new era of credible and honest politicians” who would “use those monies properly”.

During her visit to Brussels, Szél had talks with commissioners Karmenu Vella (environment policy), Vera Jourova (justice), Corina Cretu (regional policy), as well as Hungary’s Tibor Navracsics (education).

Hungary’s ruling Fidesz said in a statement that Szél’s negotiating partners included “commissioners seen as reliable allies of [US billionaire] George Soros”. In its statement, Fidesz called on Szél to reveal the purpose of her talks with Soros’s “foot soldiers”. The statement named Jourova and Cretu as “allies” of the US financier.

Democratic Coalition protests Paks upgrade

Paks nuclear plant

The leftist opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) has again voiced protest concerning the upgrade project of the nuclear power plant at Paks, arguing that the planned two new blocks “are not needed now, nor will be necessary in future”.

DK deputy leader László Varjú spoke in reaction to reports that Hungary would start calling down a Russian loan of 10 billion euros to finance the project, and said it was “obvious” that “large kick-backs will go into pockets close to [ruling] Fidesz”.

Varjú said that a growing number of countries decided to switch over to renewable energies and eliminate nuclear plants, and insisted that the upgrade project would increase rather than lower Hungary’s dependency on foreign energy sources.

The upgrade project is unnecessary, it would impact the country’s security and impose a debt of 300,000 forints (962 euros) on each of its citizens, Varjú said.

Commenting on Varjú’s remarks, Fidesz said in a statement that the upgrade is fundamental in securing cheap and reliable energy for Hungarian families and firms. Campaigning against the plant is tantamount to campaigning for more expensive energy and foreign interests, they said. (DK leader) Ferenc Gyurcsány “doubled electricity prices” during his tenure as prime minister under the Socialist Party, the statement said, and “left Hungarian families at the mercy of foreign companies.”

Featured image: www.atomeromu.hu

Hungary to start calling down Paks loan from Russia

paks nuclear

Hungary will start calling down a loan of 10 billion euros from the state of Russia to upgrade the Paks nuclear power plant in days, the state secretary for the investment said at the Portfolio Energy Investment Forum conference on Tuesday.

Payments on the first ten invoices submitted by Rosatom, the general contractor for the upgrade, have already started, said Attila Aszódi. The invoices were for a combined 98 million euros, he added. Eighty percent of the invoices will be paid out from an inter-state loan agreement concluded with Russia and the rest from Hungary’s central budget, he said.

János Süli, the minister in charge of the upgrade project, gave the green light to the payment of the invoices on Monday.

Capital of project company Paks II Atomerőmű will be raised at the same time as the first payment is made for the planning of the upgrade, Aszódi said.

The most important basic permits for the construction of two more blocks at the Paks plant have already been acquired, and now work on putting together the applications for the building permits can start, he said. Preparation of the area on which the blocks will be constructed could being early next year, and the blocks could start commercial operation in 2026 and 2027, he added.

Aszódi noted that the payment could only be made now after the upgrade project had overall been cleared by the European Commission.

The commission had scrutinised six areas of the upgrade including state aid and profitability, he said. Concerning state aid, he noted that the EC had seen no scenario for the project making losses.

According to the commission’s estimate, the upgraded plant would operate with a 7.35 percent annual profit margin while a private investor would expect a higher, 7.88 percent, profit margin.

featured image: www.napravalo.hu

Election committee rejects LMP board member’s Paks referendum initiative

Paks nuclear plant

The National Election Committee (NVB) rejected on Thursday a submission by green opposition LMP board member Péter Ungár which had sought approval for referendum questions concerning the addition of further reactor blocks to the Paks nuclear plant.

Ungár’s first question read: “Do you agree that a seventh and further reactor blocks should be built at Paks?”

The NVB rejected, 7-2, the question saying that it would impact an international agreement and was misleading.

The second question read: “Do you agree that further reactor blocks should be built at the Paks plant beyond the current ones and those that will be built under the contract signed between Hungary and Russia in 2014?” This question was rejected based on the same justification.

András Patyi, the head of the NVB, also commented on recent remarks by Ungár that his party would continue to submit referendum questions to the “Fidesz-led NVB” until its leader “resigns out of frustration”.

Patyi rejected that the committee was headed by ruling Fidesz and said that Ungár’s aim to continue submitting referendum questions in an effort to “obstruct” the NVB went against the function of the institution of the referendum.

The committee also rejected a question by the NET Party that would have asked voters if they agreed that internet access should be made free. In its justification, the NVB said that if internet access were to be made free by barring service providers from charging their clients, such a measure would violate the principle of freedom of enterprise and fair competition enshrined in Hungary’s constitution. The committee also said that if the costs incurred by service providers were to be covered by the state budget, the question would concern the content of the state budget, a subject matter that is ineligible for a referendum.

The NVB also rejected a referendum initiative on giving men with 42 years of health insurance coverage the option of early retirement.

The NVB’s decisions are not legally binding and can be appealed at the Kúria, Hungary’s supreme court, within 15 days.

featured image: atomeromu.hu

Court says environmental groups’ Paks appeal lodged too late

paks

The environmental permit for the Paks nuclear plant upgrade project is legally binding, the appeals court of Pécs, in southern Hungary, said on Thursday, dismissing an appeal by environmental groups on the ground that they lodged it with the wrong authority, thus missing the deadline.

According to the court’s statement, Greenpeace Hungary and civil group Energiaklub had jointly appealed against the validity of the environmental permit, but

they sent the appeal to the government office of Pest County rather than to the local government office in Baranya County as required, thus missing the 30-day deadline for appeal.

Consequently, the Pécs court dismissed it, saying that “sending the appeal to the wrong address was the complainants’ fault, therefore there is no redress for their missing the deadline”.

The environmental permit for the project to build two new blocks to upgrade Hungary’s sole nuclear plant at Paks has been in effect since October 5, the statement said.

Hungarian government: US ambassador needed – Weekly press briefing

The government has managed to carry out its farmland sales scheme dubbed Land to Farmers in a way that the Constitutional Court has declared lawful and constitutional, government office chief János Lázár said on Thursday. US-Hungary ties would be greatly helped if America appointed an ambassador to Hungary, he said.

Speaking at his weekly press briefing, Lázár said US charge d’affaires David Kostelancik’s recent remarks concerning press freedom in Hungary were “a lot of nonsense”.

“More US diplomats who speak Hungarian are needed,” Lázár said,

insisting that “if they spoke our language they would see that hundreds of articles criticising the government are published daily.” He added it was “far from the case2 that criticism of the government was missing from the Hungarian press.

Soros has ensured financing for his plan

US billionaire George Soros has guaranteed the conditions for financing his plan to import migrants into Europe, having donated a large portion of his wealth to his foundations, Lázár said on Thursday.

Lázár said:

“This money will be put to work everywhere in the whole of Europe, and it will support those civil communities and parties that want to open up Europe’s borders and that want to organise immigration.”

He said central European countries were being weighed down by huge pressures due to immigration, referring to the European Parliament Committee on Home Affairs, Citizenship and Justice’s (LIBE) decision to approve a draft text on modifying the Dublin Regulation. The reforms are aimed at speeding up asylum procedures and ensuring a more equal distribution of the burden of migration among member states. Lazar said the decision would open up the possibility for a permanent mechanism for distributing migrants.

Time for CEU to ‘make up its mind’

It is time for Budapest’s Central European University (CEU) to “make up its mind about what it wants done” in connection with Hungary’s higher education law,

the government office chief said.

Lázár said the CEU had “spent the whole summer” asking for the deadline for foreign universities to comply with the higher education law to be extended, but when parliament extended it “we are once again seeing political protests”.

“This isn’t fair,” Lázár said.

Lawmakers amended Hungary’s higher education law to extend the deadline for foreign universities and colleges operating in the country to meet the law’s criteria to January 1, 2019.

The government expects everyone to meet the law’s criteria within the allotted time, Lázár said.

Hungary tightened rules governing the operations of foreign universities in the country in the spring, requiring foreign colleges and universities in Hungary to operate on the basis of an interstate agreement and to run a campus in the country in which they are based.

The CEU has said that the latest amendment would prolong the state of uncertainty over its future and urged the government to sign an agreement with the State of New York to guarantee its future in Hungary.

Farmland sales scheme constitutional

Lázár noted that the scheme involved the sale of 200,000 hectares of farmland to 30,000 farmers and generated 270 billion forints (EUR 875.6m) in budget revenue.

The top court’s ruling has made it clear that all contracts in connection with the scheme were signed lawfully.

He said the court had also ruled that regulations must be set down on how revenues from the farmland sales could be spent. In addition, the court also declared the sale of land classified as “Natura2000” legal, but specified that the protection of their wildlife must continue to be upheld.

The court said that the protections must be written into law.

Benedek R Sallai of green opposition LMP and 51 opposition lawmakers had turned to the top court because they believed the government had introduced dubious measures retroactively in order to legalise the sale of state-owned land. The court on Tuesday said that some rules governing National Land Fund assets breach Hungary’s fundamental law. Whereas it rejected LMP’s concerns, it found that the law failed to specify the portion of the Fund’s lands that could be sold to reduce the public debt. This opened up the risk that the government could substantially reduce the Fund’s assets, ultimately jeopardising its operation, the ruling said.

 

Photo: MTI

EC’s position removes all barriers to Paks upgrade

The European Commission has released its written position stating that Hungary’s Paks upgrade project meets all preconditions, Lázár told his weekly press conference, adding that “all barriers [to the investment] have now been removed”.

According to the commission’s position,

the construction of two new reactor blocks will be a profitable enterprise,

which “finally puts an end to the dispute” about whether the project is needed or not, Lázár said. “Those who were doubtful concerning the rationale of the project now have the commission’s response,” Lázár said. The commission says that the project meets all legal, technical and business requirements, he added.