The EV battery scandal that threatens to derail election hopes of EU’s most far right government

Hungary faces a historic parliamentary election on 12 April that could reshape the country’s – and even Europe’s – energy and climate policies.

For the first time in his 16-year grip on power, populist prime minister Viktor Orbán faces a strong challenger. Centre-right opposition leader Péter Magyar pledged to end Hungary’s continued dependence on Russian fossil fuel imports.

Climate and energy topics have not played a central role in the election campaign, but a scandal around electric vehicle battery plants and the Hungary-Ukraine oil pipeline dispute have muddied debates. 

Stories to watch in the weeks ahead

• Election race heats up – After a heated election campaign, the centre-right opposition Tisza party, led by former government insider Péter Magyar, seems to stand strong. However, forecasts significantly differ among pollsters: pro-government pollsters show an advantage for Orbán’s Fidesz party, while other, more independent pollsters suggest a lead for Tisza, making it extremely difficult to foresee the outcome of the elections.

Ending Russian energy dependence? – Hungary is among the top three EU countries with the highest energy dependency on Russia. The country has even significantly increased its dependence on Russian oil since the start of the Ukraine war, despite EU efforts to reduce Russian fossil fuel imports. Meanwhile, Hungary filed a lawsuit against the EU’s REPowerEU regulation to ban Russian energy imports in February, arguing that the decision endangers energy security.

Opposition leader Magyar pledged to double the share of renewables in the country’s energy mix by 2040 and end Hungary’s energy dependence by 2035, according to the party’s election programme. However, his candidate for energy minister is a long-time Shell manager, which raises questions about whether Hungary would embark on an ambitious energy transition under Magyar. Hungary relies heavily on Russian gas, oil and nuclear fuels.

• Oil pipeline dispute – Ukraine is still the central theme in the election campaign. Orbán has accused Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy of deliberately blocking the Druzhba pipeline, which delivers Russian oil from Ukraine to Hungary, to destabilise the country ahead of the elections. Ukraine insists the pipeline was damaged in a Russian drone strike.

Orbán now plans to gradually halt gas exports to Ukraine until oil shipments resume (Hungary and Slovakia have been temporarily exempt from the EU ban on Russian oil imports). The tone of the election campaign has become increasingly shrill, with Orbán portraying Ukraine and the EU as colluding to support Magyar. In response to the war in Iran and the global energy market volatility, Orbán has ordered police and soldiers to guard Hungary’s key energy infrastructure, and announced a new price cap on petrol and diesel.

The latest from Hungary – last month in recap

• Battery gigafactory controversy – Hungary is rapidly becoming an electric vehicle battery manufacturing “superpower”, mainly driven by massive Chinese and South Korean investments and state subsidies. Today, 36 battery manufacturing plants are already in operation or under construction in the country, yet this push has become highly controversial due to concerns over cancer-causing chemicals, environmental leakage, illegal waste management and a lack of transparency, which the government has dismissed for several years.

Internal documents published in February spiked tensions, making battery factories a live election issue. Magyar has said he plans to establish an independent body to monitor heavily polluting industries and activities, especially investments in the battery industry. The issue has become a major liability for Orbán.

• Nuclear ambitions – Construction of the Russian-backed Paks II nuclear plant officially began in February following an eight-year delay, with Russian state company Rosatom pouring the first concrete at the site. The EU exempted the project from its sanctions against Russia in 2024. The government claims that the use of nuclear energy is the only way to achieve Hungary’s long-term climate neutrality goal, and the country’s nuclear ambitions go further: state-owned energy company MVM and US company Westinghouse signed a memorandum of understanding expanding nuclear cooperation, including small modular reactors (SMRs), a technology that has not yet been deployed commercially anywhere in the world.

New controversial gas projects – The energy ministry announced new mining concessions for the exploration and production of natural gas and crude oil in seven regions across the country, after explorations began at six sites in 2025. Several NGOs oppose the plans, as they fear water-intensive shale gas extraction will put additional pressure on protected natural areas already suffering from drought due to climate change.

Climate law initiative – More than 180 civil society organisations urged the adoption of a New Climate Law and submitted it for a 30-day public consultation. The law is meant to prepare the country for the effects of climate change, and proposes a clear emission reduction pathway. 

Russian influence – New evidence, including a leaked phone call recording, underscored reports that Hungary’s minister of foreign affairs colluded with the Kremlin, pushing to delist sanctioned Russians. This was freshly reported by VSQUARE, a media cooperation of top non-profit investigative journalism outlets in the Visegrád region.

Among their findings, the journalists said that minister Péter Szijjártó shared details with Russian deputy energy minister Pavel Sorokin on where the then-ongoing negotiations on the EU’s 18th sanctions package stood. Szijjártó explained that “the vote was not yet on the agenda thanks to a postponement arranged by Hungary and Slovakia,” one that would remain in effect until the EU agreed to “make an exception” for those countries and “allow us to continue buying Russian gas and oil.”

Clean Energy Wire. Reproduced with permission