Hungary’s new government has decided to hold on to a nuclear cooperation deal with the United States signed by its predecessor, Viktor Orbán, in a sign that Budapest wants to keep Washington close even as the political landscape at home has been turned upside down. On 29 October, the government of Prime Minister Péter Magyar asked parliament to make the agreement legally binding, cementing a piece of Orbán-era diplomacy despite the fact that the US had openly backed Orbán before he lost power.
What the Deal Actually Covers
The agreement was signed in Budapest on 16 February during a visit by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. It is a framework for civilian nuclear cooperation rather than a single contract. It covers the purchase of American nuclear fuel, US technology for storing spent fuel, and collaboration on small modular reactors, or SMRs, compact next-generation reactors that can power a city or a large industrial site without the scale and expense of a conventional plant.
Crucially, the deal encourages Hungary to pick US technology and companies as its main suppliers for future nuclear projects. It stops short of locking Budapest into any specific purchase, but it lays down a roadmap and, just as importantly, an alternative to Hungary’s long and deep reliance on Russian nuclear expertise. Parliament is expected to pass the bill comfortably, as Magyar’s government holds a two-thirds majority.
Political Backdrop
The political twist is what makes this notable. Orbán had governed Hungary for 16 years and built unusually warm ties with both Moscow and Washington under President Donald Trump, before losing power in the April election to Magyar. The US had made little secret of its preference for the incumbent: Rubio visited Hungary just two months before the vote and gave Orbán a robust public endorsement.
That Magyar’s government has nonetheless chosen to keep the nuclear agreement. In fact, formalising it the day before Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orbán (no relation to the former premier) met Rubio in Washington to sign fresh memorandums on energy and law enforcement suggests Budapest favours national interest, not party loyalty, in deciding to stay aligned with the US on energy. The MOUs, she said after the signing, were “key milestones” but part of a longer process aimed at firm agreements and action plans.
The Russian Elephant in the Room
Behind all of this sits Paks, Hungary’s only nuclear power station. Its existing reactors are Russian-built and run on Russian fuel. In 2014, Orbán awarded Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, a roughly €12.5 billion contract to build two new reactors at the site, known as Paks II, financed largely by a Russian state loan and handed over without competitive bidding.
That project has been dogged by delays and rising costs. The first concrete was poured only in February 2026, by which point Hungary had already spent more than €2 billion. Now Magyar’s government is reviewing the situation and searching alternative suppliers, even weighing whether to replace Rosatom as the main contractor, a move analysts call the most radical option available, and one that could add five to ten years to construction.
The American deal fits into this balancing act. Budapest has been building options for some time: last year it partnered with Poland’s Synthos Green Energy, which holds the rights to GE Vernova Hitachi’s SMR technology in Central Europe, and in November 2025 it signed an agreement to buy American nuclear fuel and US spent-fuel storage technology for its Russian-built plant.
More Than Two Reactors at Stake
Whether Hungary ultimately sticks with Rosatom, swaps it out, or simply uses the threat of doing so to extract better terms, the decision will say a great deal about how far a country so embedded in Russia’s nuclear supply chain is willing to go to loosen that grip. Replacing Rosatom entirely would not just affect the new reactors; it could ripple through fuel supplies and maintenance for the existing plant and risk the kind of litigation Finland faced when it cancelled its own Rosatom project in 2022.
A final decision on the Paks expansion is expected late in 2026 or early in 2027. For now, by banking the American deal, Budapest has quietly widened its room for manoeuvre keeping the door to Washington open while it decides what to do about Moscow.
Reuters / The Straits Times (2026). Hungary to stick with Orban-era nuclear cooperation deal with US. 29 October 2026. https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/hungary-to-stick-with-orban-era-nuclear-cooperation-deal-with-us
The bill on the U.S.–Hungary civil nuclear intergovernmental agreement, tabled in the Hungarian Parliament on 28 October 2026 https://www.portfolio.hu/gazdasag/20261028/kedd-ejjel-egy-lepessel-kozelebb-kerult-magyarorszag-az-amerikai-nuklearis-kepessegekhez-872454