Nuclear power plant Paks upgrade to start in January

The upgrade of Hungary’s sole nuclear power plant in Paks will begin early next year, Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s foreign minister, said on Monday.

“The real construction work will start in January and nothing will stop the investment from now on,” Szijjártó told reporters after talks between Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who visited Hungary on the occasion of the World Judo Championships.

The two sides made no new decisions but reviewed the implementation of their previous agreements. They agreed that “their joint decisions made earlier have started to bear fruit”, Szijjártó said.

Orbán and Putin confirmed what János Süli, the Hungarian minister in charge of the upgrade project, and the president of Rosatom had agreed upon on Sunday, he said.

Accordingly, the upgrade will start in January next year “after a 22-month delay” while Brussels examined if the project complied with EU rules, Szijjártó said.

The project will cost altogether 12 billion dollars. As agreed previously, the contribution of Hungarian suppliers will account for 5 billion dollars, namely 40 percent, he said.

Hungary signed an agreement in Moscow in January 2014 on the construction of two blocks at the Paks nuclear power plant by Russia’s Rosatom.

As we wrote last week, Putin will get the honour in recognition of “the major role the Russian Federation and Hungary assign to the Debrecen University in the upgrade of the Paks nuclear plant”, the senate of the university said.