Gov't to involve domestic suppliers, experts for Paks expansion

The government instructed the national development minister to immediately provide for the necessary framework and resources to launch a supplier program, designed to ensure the highest possible domestic supplier ratio to the project.

The government resolution mentions the building of a fuel-testing laboratory, connected to a Generation IV research reactor which would be built, if possible in Hungary. The ministers of development (Miklós Seszták), of the Prime Minister's Office (János Lázár) and of justice (László Trócsányi) are asked to examine the possibility of setting up such a laboratory in Hungary, the current financing of the Hungarian participation in the project as well as the involvement of other resources of financing as well as possible alternatives to the project.

Lázár is required to report at least every six months to the government about the development of the Paks expansion, including the tecnical-nuclear safety, fiscal-financial, employment and media impacts of the project. The resolution further stated that the government considers the execution of the project of specific importance for the national economy and of basic necessity for the safety of energy supply. 

Hungary signed an agreement in January 2014 on the construction of two blocks at the Paks plant by Russia's Rosatom. Russia has promised to lend Hungary €10 bln for the €12 bln project. Hungarian state-owned MVM Paks II Nuclear Power Plant Development Company and Russia's Nizhny Novgorod Engineering Company Atomenergoproekt, part of the Rosatom group, signed three implementation agreements for two new 1,200MW reactors to be constructed at the Paks nuclear power plant early December.