Hungary's Foreign Minister Says Will Meet With Russia's Rosatom CEO In Vienna Next Week

UNITED NATIONS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd September, 2022) Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Friday that he is planning to meet with Alexey Likhachev, the CEO of Russian state-run atomic energy agency Rosatom, next week to discuss the construction of new power units for the Paks II nuclear power plant in Hungary.

"In the meantime, we have received the final establishment permit for our new nuclear power plant, which we will construct based on the contract with Rosatom. I am gonna meet with the CEO, Mr. Likhachev, on Monday in Vienna on the margins of the IAEA Congress (International Atomic Energy Agency), and we will put together the schedule for the upcoming months and years basically in order to complete the project by 2030," Szijjarto told journalists after the meeting with Russian Foreign Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly.

Hungary's only nuclear power plant, Paks, generates almost half of all electricity in Hungary, with the share expected to double after the planned commissioning of two new NPP's reactor units. The Hungarian leadership has repeatedly emphasized that nuclear energy is a way to ensure the country's energy security.

In late 2014, Russia and Hungary signed an agreement on the construction of two additional advanced reactors for the Paks II nuclear power plant. The sides agreed that Russia would allocate 10 billion Euros ($9.84 billion) in a loan to finance the construction of the units.

In late August, the Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority (HAEA) issued a number of permits for the construction of the fifth and sixth units of the NPP.