Report: Hungary not ready to issue permits for new reactors of Paks

MOSCOW, Oct 1 (PRIME) -- The Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority is not ready to issue a license for construction of new reactors of the Paks-2 nuclear power plant that Russian state nuclear power corporation Rosatom planned to build, Bloomberg reported on Friday quoting a statement of the agency.

The Hungarian regulator has been evaluating Rosatom’s project for the past 15 months for compliance with the safety standards, and will need additional information to make a decision, Bloomberg reported.

Plans of the country’s government to expand the nuclear power plant faced criticism from the opposition parties of Hungary, which they want to cancel if they win the elections next year, according to Bloomberg.

Russia and Hungary signed a contract to build the Paks-2 plant with two VVER-1200 nuclear power units in 2014. Rosatom CEO Alexei Likhachyov said in 2019 that the company expected a construction license to be issued in July–December 2021.

In August 2021, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that Budapest was not dramatizing the fact that license issuance takes so much time, and expressed hope that construction will be finished in 2029.

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