Possible EU objections

The EU can make investigations on at least two issues, possibly three:

DG Internal Market: There was no tender process before the contract was signed. The decision on the Russian reactors was purely political. This might be against EU regulations. The Hungarian government communicates that they notified the Commission about the planned financial structure (i.e. to finance the new reactors from the Russian credit, so from state budget) and the Commission approved of this kind of financing. However, there is no official green light for the whole project by the Commission. Communication has only happened with DG ENER, who does not investigate financial terms. As the main role of DG MARKT is to investigate issues relating to the European Single Market, they will have to investigate whether there are good reasons for the lack of tendering process and whether it does not violate EU regulations. There was a statement from DG MARKT that they have already started investigations, but we have no further knowledge about this investigation.

DG Competition: This will be the hottest issue. Since the plans are that the Russian credit will go into the state budget, from which the new reactors will be financed, it suggests the case of state aid. The investment most probably does not fulfill the Altmark criteria and based on the communications it seems that the government has not considered this aspect at all. The financial agreement will be the core of the investigations, but it is still not clear whether it has been signed or not, therefore, as far as we know, DG COMP has not started the investigation.

DG Finance: The Russian credit will increase national debt, and certainly will have a long term influence on the debt curve. A major question for us is when DG FIN can start to investigate: with the signing of the financial agreement, or only when the first part of the credit arrives to the Hungarian Treasury?