Hungary’s foreign minister said in Brussels on Monday that imposing another package of sanctions on Russia would be a “big mistake” and that Budapest would never approve measures affecting nuclear cooperation with Moscow.
At a press conference at the Council of Foreign Affairs Ministers of the European Union (EU), Peter Szijjártó said that the adoption of a tenth package of sanctions against Moscow would be “a serious mistake” and that such a decision leads to “a dead end”, from an economic, political and security point of view.
The minister also referred to the fact that his government will never support “any decision that minimally affects nuclear cooperation between Hungary and Russia.”
At stake will be the expansion of the only nuclear power plant in the country, in the city of Paks, for which a contract worth 12.5 billion euros was signed in 2014 with the Russian state company Rosatom.
This plant is responsible for half of the electricity production in Hungary and one third of the national electricity consumption.
The EU has adopted successive sanctions packages against Moscow since its occupation and annexation of the Crimean peninsula and other territories in eastern Ukraine.
As part of the Russian military offensive against Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, the European bloc has already approved nine sanctions packages.
Source: TSF
