The New Hungarian Nuclear Investment, Paks
LIVE - Hearing
The building of the new Paks 2 nuclear power plant in Hungary, is not simply the matter of the country's own bad choice of energy mix, but the Hungarian Government's actions are in conflict not only with European principles and values in general, but most probably with European law as well. During our event we plan to look into the issues of Energy security, political security and nuclear safety and discuss the following points in detail:
1. How the investment increases dependence on Russia: financial dependence by a 10 billion Euro Russian loan and of course, technological and fuel dependence by the choice of Russian reactor with a full fuel supply and waste deal. This huge “monoculture” completely confronts the concept and idea of energy security. It is not only a political risk to Europe, but it endangers nuclear safety.
2. The corruption potential of the project is particularly large, as shown in a recent study. Procurement laws and competition rules are disregarded, as there has been no tender procedure when selecting the investor, as well as the funding of the project from state budget highly raises the question of illegal state aid. In both cases investigations are on-going within the European Commission.
Draft programme:
Rebecca Harms, Benedek Jávor Energy security, Energy policy implications of a large nuclear investment within the EU, with special regard to energy security
Stephen Thomas, Professor for Energy Policy, Greenwich University (UK)
Ada Ámon, President, Energiaklub (Hungary) Nuclear safety - How the abuse of rules and the presence of corruption poses a threat to nuclear safety
István János Tóth, Corruption Research Centre and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Political security - Risks of Russian dependence of a member state
Dr. Todor Galev, senior research fellow Center for the Study of Democracy (Bulgaria) The European Commission's assessment of the situation
Massimo Garribba, Director, DG ENERGY, European Commission Discussion, Q/A
Closing remarks from the co-hosts.
