A surprising announcement was made at the weekend by János Lázár, the Minister of Construction and Transport, that the Hungarian government will “end the friendship”, as he put it, with Siemens, one of Germany’s biggest companies, reports the country’s press. Contract for 100 Siemens locomotives under question.
The background to the dispute is that at Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant, the control system is provided by a German-French consortium, but as it is currently a dual-use technology from a legal point of view, the current European regulatory environment requires the relevant national export authority to authorise its civilian use. This has already been done in the case of France, but not in the case of Germany, where Siemens is the company in charge, reports hungarytoday.hu.
The government is no longer counting on Siemens’ involvement in the renewal of the railway fleet, the minister said, as quoted by Atv.hu. According to the report, János Lázár said that “we are no longer friends with them”, adding that there are no plans in the future to buy Siemens vehicles.
Siemens locomotives under question
The announcement is significant for several reasons. First, former Minister of Innovation and Technology László Palkovics reported last spring that a public procurement procedure for 115 new electric locomotives had been concluded, with Siemens Mobility Kft. winning the tender. and Siemens Mobility Austria GmbH. The plan was to use Siemens Vectron locomotives to renew and expand the InterCity service in Hungary, with a framework agreement signed in April 2022 and delivery contracts expected to be signed by the end of 2022. If the schedule had been adhered to, the first locomotives in the procurement would have entered service in 2024, but now it looks like none of the project will be realised, Világgazdaság points out.
In addition, the minister said they will review cooperation with Siemens in the future.
But perhaps what best explains the current situation and the hostile relationship between the two sides is the issue of the expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant. As has already been mentioned, a national export licence is needed for the control system to be supplied by the German-French consortium, because legally it is now a dual-use technology.
However, the German government continues to block Siemens Energy from delivering the control system for the new reactor units at the Paks II nuclear power plant in Hungary.
The German company’s consortium partner, the French company Framatome, has already received approval. In any case, Germany is currently pursuing a strongly anti-nuclear stance in its so-called green transition, having recently shut down its last nuclear power plants, while Hungary has the complete opposite stance on the matter.
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