BUDAPEST, May 23. /TASS/. The Hungarian government expects that the second stage of the Paks nuclear power plant (NPP) currently being built by the Russian state corporation Rosatom will be realized, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Tuesday at the Qatar Economic Forum.

The nuclear plant in Paks built by Soviet specialists in the 1980s has been successfully operating for many years, the Prime Minister said. "The Russians were always reliable partners. We would like to enlarge this nuclear power station. To enlarge it by different technology is very risky. We would like to enlarge it and on the same side we would like to use Russian technology," Orban said, responding to the mediator’s question concerning sanctions interfering with the implementation of the Paks-2 project and whether Hungary is going to drop cooperation with Rosatom.

"We continue to do it and I hope we will be able to continue this complicated process with the nuclear power station. There are some delays but I’m optimistic that we can conclude it as it was planned," the Prime Minister added, streamed on the Hungarian government’s page in Facebook [banned in Russia due to its ownership by Meta that has been designated as extremist - TASS].