Hungary agrees with Moscow to continue buying Russian gas

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó announced on Tuesday, during a visit to Moscow, that his country has reached an agreement with the Russian company Rosatom to modify the current contract for the expansion of its only plant. nuclear, while it has agreed with Gazprom on the possibility of increasing its purchases of Russian gas.

The contract for the construction of two new reactors at the atomic power plant located in the Hungarian town of Paks “was signed nine years ago,” Szijjártó said in a video posted on his Facebook account. He recalled that the two parties had to “find the legal framework to be able to build [los nuevos reactores]and indicated that the agreed amendments will now be presented to Brussels for approval.

Szijjártó, who met today in Moscow with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak and Alexéi Lijachov, CEO of Rosatom, the Russian nuclear state company, did not give details of the agreed changes. With four Soviet VVER-440 (water-to-water) reactors, with a total output of 2 gigawatts, the Paks power plant in central Hungary currently supplies almost half of the electrical energy produced in the country and a third of what you consume.

In 2014, the Hungarian government signed a contract with Moscow for the construction of two additional reactors, with a Russian loan of 12 billion euros. At the beginning of last February, Likhachev announced Rosatom’s desire to speed up the expansion work at Paks. “If the client gives us the task to accelerate, then we will accelerate, if he says to work within the current commitments established by the contracts, we will do it,” Likhachov told reporters at the time, quoted by Interfax.

A month earlier, Szijjártó had announced that he had agreed with Novak to “accelerate investments [en Paks] everything possible”. However, the plan is currently encountering obstacles in the policy of sanctions against Russia, as Germany prevents the German company Siemens from selling components to the project, for which Hungary is negotiating to increase French participation. .

The government of Hungarian Prime Minister, the ultra-nationalist Viktor Orbán, considered the Kremlin’s closest ally within the European Union, has reiterated that his country will not approve of any measure hampering Russian-Hungarian cooperation in the nuclear field.

Regarding gas supply, the Hungarian minister recalled today that Hungary buys 85% of the gas it uses directly from Russia, and announced an agreement with the Russian gas giant Gazprom to increase import volumes .

In addition, the Minister underlined the importance of supply through the TurkStream gas pipeline. “We have reached an agreement with Gazprom, in the sense that we will continue to be able to buy larger quantities than agreed” if necessary, Szijjártó said. Moscow “promised that there would be no transport problems via the TurkStream”.

On several occasions, the Orbán government has criticized the sanctions imposed by the EU on Russia for its aggression against Ukraine, to which it attributes the energy crisis and high inflation. Despite this, so far, Budapest has joined all the punishment packages of the Twenty-Seven. (Eph)