With an investment of HUF 60 billion, the Boysen group will create 400 new jobs in Nyíregyháza, where the company will produce parts related to electric cars for the BMW factory in Debrecen, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó announced on Monday.

At the announcement of the green field investment in Budapest, the head of the ministry reported that the German company will produce battery holder and cover plates for BMW. This will be the company’s first plant that only produces components for electric cars. The factory, based on the most modern technology, is based on renewable energy.

The HUF 60 billion project is supported by the state with HUF 5.6 billion, thus helping to create 400 new jobs.

According to the minister, the world economy has been turned upside down twice in recent years, so everything is uncertain, only one process is taking place unshakably: the rise of electric cars. This is not just business and economic legality, but also the result of a political decision, in which the European Union played a huge role.

The EU is one of the frontrunners in achieving the 2050 climate neutrality goals, the transition to the electric car industry is the result of a series of decisive EU political decisions, because transport is one of the main sources of environmental pollution, without its transformation, the sector’s emissions cannot be reduced in the long term and to a large extent.

“That’s why it’s strange when politicians who call themselves green argue against the electric car industry and try to use it to create some kind of confusion and mischief,” he opined. He called it important to create the necessary capacities for the production of electric cars, because there is a crazy European competition for such investments.

“Whoever can attract investment has a chance to avoid recession and mass unemployment. Our country also entered this competition and is among the best in the world in this field.”

The example he gave was that he placed his electromobility strategy on three premium German car manufacturers in a significant way, and in part, many of Hungary’s suppliers also settled here from the east. Hungary is already the world’s third largest producer of electric batteries.

“If you want someone to refer to electric battery production as some kind of mysterious, new, dangerous concept, I’m already pointing out that huge electric battery factories are still operating in Hungary, and their impact is not the same as some basically opposition politicians who describe themselves as fantastic experts. they are trying to lie here.”

Western European countries are doing their best to build as many of the factories related to the electric car industry as possible, so a new plant of the Chinese CATL was recently inaugurated in Germany. “It seems that some people have objections to what is good in Germany, in Hungary, just so it doesn’t turn out that the inspiration also comes from elsewhere.”

In the last eight years, a total of 183 large German investments were born in Hungary. Thanks to this, after a 13 percent increase, bilateral trade reached a peak again, already reaching 56 billion euros at the end of October.

Demonstrations against the factory were also held in Debrecen on Saturday, but the antipathy was felt even before that. At a public hearing held on January 9, the representative of the Chinese battery factory in Debrecen was booed and not allowed to speak for several minutes. Then, as we reported, on January 20, the public hearing on the environmental protection approval of the planned CATL battery factory near Debrecen once again caused great anger. On the forum, the chieftain was repeatedly called a traitor.

In August last year, it was announced that global market leader CATL would build the second European battery factory next to Debrecen. The project has been declared a priority investment for the national economy, and the state is allocating HUF 88 immediately for the development of the industrial park’s power supply.

The locals have many problems with the investment, to which the authorities have not been able to provide satisfactory answers so far:

• The water demand of the battery factory alone will be greater than that of the entire city. According to the environmental impact study, this is not a problem, but according to civilians, the area around the city has been suffering from increasingly severe droughts for years
• A lot of dangerous and toxic substances are used during production, the question is how much of them ends up in the environment.
• The factory will need 9,000 workers, and there aren’t that many job seekers in Debrecen, especially BMW, so 150 people are now being hired for the BMW factory under construction. According to the plans, workers would be hired from the surrounding area and from Romania.
• Many also fear that China’s CATL will not comply with all laws perfectly.