Mikepércs is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

in Hajdú-Bihar county, in the

Northern Great Plain The Northern Great Plain ( hu, Észak-Alföld) is a statistical ( NUTS 2) region of Hungary. It is part of the Great Plain and North (NUTS 1) region. The Northern Great Plain includes the counties of Hajdú-Bihar, Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok, and Sza ...

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...

of eastern

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

Geography

It covers an

area Area is the quantity that expresses the extent of a region on the plane or on a curved surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape A shape or figure is a graphics, graphical representation of an obje ...

of and has a

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

of 4,480 people (2015).

Economy

CATL battery factory

As part of Hungarian president

Viktor Orbán Viktor Mihály Orbán (; born 31 May 1963) is a Hungarian politician who has served as prime minister of Hungary since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002. He has presided over Fidesz since 1993, with a brief break between 20 ...

's 2010 "Eastern Opening" policy of economic realignment towards

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, on 12August 2022, Chinese

battery Battery most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...

manufacturer

CATL Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (), abbreviated as CATL, is a Chinese battery manufacturer and technology company founded in 2011 that specializes in the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage s ...

announced it would construct a USD$7.8billion, 100

GWh A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bil ...

battery factory on 221

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is a ...

s of land located in the Southern Economic Zone in

Debrecen Debrecen ( , is Hungary's second-largest city, after Budapest, the regional centre of the Northern Great Plain region and the seat of Hajdú-Bihar County. A city with county rights, it was the largest Hungarian city in the 18th century and i ...

; the project was hailed by Hungary's governing

Fidesz Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance (; hu, Fidesz – Magyar Polgári Szövetség) is a right-wing populist and national-conservative political party in Hungary, led by Viktor Orbán. It was formed in 1988 under the name of Alliance of Young ...

party as the biggest foreign investment in the nation's history, and the factory would be the largest of its kind in Europe. However, residents began to protest as construction began, sparked in late 2022 by a street protest organised by a group of local women. At two public hearings regarding the project, townspeople started fights and shouted at government officials, calling them traitors a reporter for local newspaper ''Debreciner'' described "hundreds of people yelling and fighting". Mikepércs' mayor Timár Zoltán announced he was also opposed to the project, despite being a member of Fidesz himself; similarly,

György Matolcsy György Matolcsy (born 18 July 1955, Budapest) is a Hungarian politician and economist, current governor of the Hungarian National Bank (MNB). He also served as Minister of Economy (2000–2002) during the first cabinet of Viktor Orbán and ...

, the governor of the

Hungarian National Bank The Hungarian National Bank ( hu, Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB)) is the central bank of Hungary and as such part of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB). The Hungarian National Bank was established in 1924 and succeeded the Royal Hungarian St ...

, also came out against the factory. Residents are concerned about pollution, property values, and unemployment. Zoltán told the ''New York Times'' that CATL had told him it was "too busy" to send a representative to a town-hall meeting. In response, Fidesz has blamed

George Soros George Soros ( name written in eastern order), (born György Schwartz, August 12, 1930) is a Hungarian-American businessman and philanthropist. , he had a net worth of US$8.6 billion, Note that this site is updated daily. having donated mo ...

for fomenting protests;

mayor László Papp blamed "fake information" for the locals' opposition.

References

Populated places in Hajdú-Bihar County {{Hajdu-geo-stub