Parliament approves National Energy Strategy

Parliament on Monday evening approved the government's National Energy Strategy aimed at ensuring the long-term security of energy supplies in Hungary increasing the country's energy self-sufficiency and the state's role in energy affairs.

The strategy intends to achieve these objectives through increased energy efficiency, rising domestic production of renewable energy, integration into Europe's energy infrastructure, introduction of dual-purpose agriculture for production of both food and biomass, use of fossil fuels and gas both obtained at a fair price from abroad and extracted in Hungary as well as continued generation of atomic energy.

The National Energy Strategy stipulates the construction of new power plants to replace those that will become obsolete in the future.

The strategy calls for rebuilding the government's role in Hungary's energy affairs, asserting that strengthening the state role is the only way to meet the goals of the strategy, among them to guarantee the energy supply of household at affordable prices, the National Development Ministry said in a statement on the strategy on Monday.

The government plans to set up a new government institutional framework and system of tools in the field of energy, the ministry statement said.