Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has called for nuclear energy to remain a terrain for international cooperation, lamenting that the field was riddled with ideological debates.
“As long as it is the infrastructure which determines energy cooperation, ideology should have nothing to do with [it],” he said at the Atomexpo nuclear energy trade. The minister added that whereas nuclear energy had been “a victim of ideology” recently, Europe had “overcome” discrimination, “thanks mostly to the fact that France is a pro-nuclear country”. “We were able to win our debates in Europe and make it recognised that generating electricity in a nuclear way is sustainable, safe and cheap,” he said. Minister Szijjártó said that severing nuclear cooperation between Europe and Russia “would be another dent on the continent’s competitiveness”, putting the EU’s green goals at risk. He said criticism of Hungary on the issue was “hypocritical”, as Rosatom was working with sub-contractors from the US, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria and Sweden at the Paks site. “This means … on the corporate level, decision-makers have not lost their common sense yet,” Szijjártó said, adding that Hungary would not adopt EU sanctions against the Russian nuclear sector, as doing so would harm Hungary’s interests. Banning nuclear cooperation would also be “strange”, as Russia was also the largest Uranium supplier to the US last year, exporting ore worth some 1 billion dollars in 2023, he added. “I do hope that in the future rationality and common sense will prevail … and the nuclear industry will be exempt from ideological debates. I hope that we will only concentrate on professional and scientific issues…” In Sochi, Szijjártó also met representatives of the Serbian, Turkish, Iraqi and Belorussian governments.