Speaking at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting in Vienna, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto said that Hungary is staunchly against EU sanctions against Russian nuclear sector.
Minister Szijjarto said that some entities in the European Union are constantly making attempts to put hurdles and obstacles in nuclear investments, especially Russian involvement in the expansion of Hungary’s sole nuclear power plant Paks.
Hungary has been exempted from the partial EU embargo on Russian oil and rejects calls for other sanctions on Russia’s energy industry. Szijjarto stressed that sanctions on nuclear investments were a red line for Hungary and would be a violation of European regulations.
He said that Hungary will soon start the construction of two new units at NPP Paks in cooperation with Russian state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom. The two new units will supplement Hungary’s four existing reactors, which run on Russian fuel, and supply around half the country’s electricity.
Nuclear energy and an EU oil-price cap are unlikely to find their way into the proposal for the seventh sanction package.
