Overview
- On Friday, Romania took both 706 MW reactors at Cernavodă offline and declared a nationwide state of emergency for August after river levels fell below cooling thresholds.
- Hungary announced a full shutdown of its Paks plant, the first complete stoppage in the 44‑year facility's history, because the Danube no longer supplies enough cooling water.
- Both countries are pursuing short‑term fixes: Romania approved funds to divert water into cooling channels and opened talks to import electricity from neighboring states.
- Budapest has ordered industrial and public savings, prepared legal measures for targeted outages, and warned that losing roughly 2,000 MW from Paks will sharply increase import needs and costs.
- Low Danube flows are also halting inland shipping and causing local drinking‑water shortages, showing how drought-driven river lows can cascade into energy, transport, and municipal services.