Magyar Tells Rosatom EUR 2.7bn Paks II Outlay Has Left Hungary With Two Concrete Pits
Hungary's premier publicly disputed Rosatom's progress claims for the 2.4 GW expansion, deepening doubts about a project that anchors the country's long-term power strategy.
Hungarian prime minister Peter Magyar late on Thursday (2026-08-13) told Russian nuclear developer Rosatom that after EUR 2.7 billion had been invested in the 2.4 GW Paks II nuclear expansion, Hungary had received only "two large concrete pits," directly disputing Rosatom's assertion that the project is proceeding "to schedule," Montel reported. Magyar pointed to soaring costs and years of delays.5
The confrontation comes at a difficult moment for Hungarian power supply. Paks I, the country's only operating nuclear plant, was forced offline by record-low Danube water levels in late July (2026-07-31), stripping out the generation source that typically covers close to half of Hungary's electricity demand. The European Commission discussed convening an emergency meeting of its Electricity Coordination Group following the shutdown, according to Euronews. The plant was expected to resume partial output only around Monday (2026-08-10), when one turbine was switched back on.6,4
The two developments, read together, expose a system under dual pressure. Paks I is operationally exposed to hydrological risk. Paks II, designed to secure Hungary's baseload generation for decades, is a project whose sponsor claims progress that the buyer's own prime minister cannot verify from EUR 2.7 billion of committed spending.5,4
Magyar's tone toward Moscow has been consistently harder than his predecessor's since his Tisza party's April (2026-04-12) election victory unseated Viktor Orban after 16 years in power. Orban had overseen the original Paks II agreement and maintained close energy ties with Russia as a matter of political principle. A sitting prime minister describing a multi-billion euro construction site as two holes in the ground is a different posture entirely.3
Still, posture and infrastructure are different things. Analysts told Montel in May (2026-05-18) that Hungary could need as long as a decade to reduce its Russian energy dependence, constrained by confidential long-term supply contracts and limited alternative infrastructure options.1 New economy and energy minister Istvan Kapitany, analysts said that same week, faces structural barriers that political change alone will not remove quickly.2
That analysis predates Magyar's public confrontation with Rosatom over Paks II. The dispute now injects additional uncertainty into a project that was already the centrepiece of Hungary's transition plan. If Paks II's timeline slips further, Budapest faces harder arithmetic: an existing plant exposed to weather-driven outages, an expansion project of unclear construction status, and alternative supply routes that analysts say will take years to develop.5,1
The EUR 2.7 billion figure Magyar cited represents committed spend, not a budget line — money already disbursed. His framing of what that money has produced turns any further disbursement into the central negotiating question between Budapest and Moscow. Rosatom's response, or absence of one, will signal how much leverage Hungary can realistically exercise over a contractor whose parent state it is simultaneously trying to reduce dependence on.5
Paks II was conceived under a different political arrangement. Orban's government signed the agreement with Rosatom and maintained it through years of EU pressure, treating energy sovereignty and Russian alignment as compatible. Magyar's government is the first to have both a mandate to diverge from Moscow and the public standing to challenge Rosatom's claims openly.3,5
Analysts told Montel in May (2026-05-18) that structural constraints, not political intent, govern Hungary's energy trajectory. If Rosatom offers no credible revised schedule in response to Magyar's challenge, Budapest's gap between declared intent and deliverable alternatives may prove those analysts right sooner than expected.1,2,5