Budapest Budapest, 27 August : Budapest, Aug 27 : Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority has granted a permit for expansion of the country’s Paks nuclear power plant , which is located 120 kilometers east of Budapest.The project will require Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom to construct two new reactors on the site, Peter Szijjarto, minister of trade and foreign affairs told reporters on Friday.
“The positive news is that we’ve received this permit for construction known as the establishment permit that Hungarian experts from around the world have been studying for the past two years,” Szijjarto said.
He said that the permit would allow for the passage of the project from a stage of “preparation” into “actual construction” as reported by Xinhua news agency.
Szijjarto who is in charge of the nuclear power plant’s expansion, stated that the license guarantees that Hungary will have two newly operating nuclear reactors by the year 2030.
The reactors to be built will soon be constructed by Rosatom under a contract in which the two governments signed in 2014.
The Paks expansion project has been plagued with delays.
In 2014, the government of Hungary promised that the first of the two new blocks would be operational by 2023.
Two years ago, the Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that Russia would begin construction by November 2021.
Plans for two blocks in Paks serve Hungary’s long-term needs, Szijjarto said on Friday.
The Minister says it’s been established that the countries with nuclear energy can enjoy a secure supply of energy because the production of nuclear energy is in large quantities at a cost which isn’t affected by changes of the global or European energy markets.
Szijjarto stated that the government was considering the expansion of the nuclear power plant as a guarantee for the country’s energy security.
