“Hungary’s plans worry Berlin”

Federal environment minister Barbara Hendricks criticised Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán’s plans for a law that would allow his government to ignore the national nuclear regulating institution when constructing new reactors, write Michael Bauchmüller and Cathrin Kahlweit in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “I find Hungary’s decision to curtail the rights of the atomic supervision body highly alarming,” Hendricks told the newspaper. For nuclear safety, it is “essential that the operation of nuclear power plants is not judged according to political opportunities, but monitored by an independent regulatory authority capable of acting,” said Hendricks. Orbán plans the construction of two new reactors for the country’s sole nuclear power station Paks, and the proposed law would enable his government to issue decrees that decide on “deviations from the authority’s permissions and the conditions for a nuclear facility that is being built,” write Bauchmüller and Kahlweit.

Read the article in German here.