November 24, 2025: China and Hungary have held talks that could pave the way for developing partnerships in lithium battery recycling.
A Chinese delegation attended an international workshop on the subject hosted by the Hungarian Battery Association (HBA) on November 5.
In addition to considering recycling-related issues, Hungarian and Chinese experts discussed latest technological developments, opportunities, and prospects for lithium recycling of lithium-battery recycling and considered requirements of Hungary’s extended producer responsibility for batteries on the market.
The event was organized within the framework of the New Energy Battery Joint Laboratory, a facility established through Chinese-European cooperation by the Faculty of Science at Hungary’s Eötvös Loránd University, Hungarian recycler NT Recycling and the HBA.
HBA managing director Péter Kaderják said Hungary’s battery sector will be one of Europe’s largest industry hubs by 2030. The country is poised to become an important market for batteries used in EVs and for those produced for energy storage systems.
Kaderják said cooperation with international companies plays an essential role in the sector’s growth.
Establishing recycling capacities is particularly important given the limited liability of raw materials such as lithium and cobalt in Hungary and the wider European region, Kaderják said.
Additional tasks include building battery testing capabilities, developing R&D activities, and fostering collaboration.
But he urged HBA member companies to be more transparent in communications about the battery sector to overcome any public resistance to industrial activities.
Ádám Nagy, deputy state secretary for industrial affairs at the Ministry of National Economy, said establishing recycling capacity should be part of the country’s moves to create a full domestic battery production chain.
Dongchang Zhao, senior expert at the China Automotive Technology and Research Center (CATARC) and MD of the CATARC Carbon Digital Center, said it was essential that countries cooperated in creating databases, such as for measuring the carbon footprint of batteries from production to recycling.
China’s state Xinhua news agency said on November 5 that Hungarian and Chinese officials saw vast opportunities for cooperation in battery recycling and new energy for the two countries.
According to Xinhua, Hungary’s battery production capacity has grown from zero to 87GWh in seven years, attracting €20 billion in foreign investment — mainly from China, South Korea and Europe. Capacity is projected to reach 250GWh by 2030.
However a study released by European clean transport campaign group Transport & Environment (T&E) in February cast doubt on the benefits of European partnerships with Chinese and Korean battery majors.
T&E said its study, conducted by external and independent experts, analysed the environmental and social conditions in China-based CATL’s battery plant in Hungary and South Korea’s LG Energy Solution plant in Poland.
