Remaining legal options to prevent the extension

The above mentioned EU investigations can mean effective tools to prevent the investment. Besides EU investigations there are options to prevent the investment within the Hungarian legislation. However, it has to be emphasized that these options mainly exist in theory. There are ways to put a stop to the contracts and thus to the project, but it is most likely these legal tools will not work (see explanation at each option).

The Hungarian Parliament: As the financial contract has not yet been submitted to the Parliament, this is one point where the project can stop. It is said by the government that the financial contract will only come into force when the Parliament accepts it and it becomes a law. They also say that the contract will only be discussed after the elections, so after the new government is formed. Therefore it is theoretically an option that MPs will vote against the financial contract, which will not be enforced then. This will mean the automatic abolition of the former framework contract, as one of its main conditionality is the financial agreement. However, we do not have high hopes this will happen, based on previous experiences.

Constitutional Court: If the contract, when it becomes public, proves that Paks 2 will be financed from the state budget through the Russian credit, it might be unconstitutional, because of the limit of the national debt. This limit is defined in the Constitution, and if there is a chance that the debt will exceed it because of the loan, it can be regarded as being against the Constitution – so the law on the financial contract will have to be abrogated.

When the contract becomes a law (so when the Parliament approves), there are two ways a complaint can be submitted to the Constitutional Court. One is through the President, Mr János Áder. However, he has already demonstrated that he has no problem with the Russian agreement, when he signed the law about the framework contract. So we cannot trust that he will do differently this time.

The other way is through the Ombudsman, who can either submit it himself by right of office, or based on a complaint that arrived to his office from someone else, who can be an NGO for instance. Energiaklub will submit a complaint to the ombudsman, so as to ensure the ombudsman does not avoid the topic and to make him investigate. However, the outcome of this investigation cannot be predicted, it might as well be rejected. If it is not, then the Ombudsman passes the complaint to the Constitutional Court. They can still reject it, given the fact that the majority of the Constitutional Court consists of judges who were appointed by the ruling party, Fidesz.

The most positive scenario is that the Constitutional Court rules the agreement being against the constitution, which then has to be terminated.