Austria is set to officially file a legal complaint in Brussels against state subsidies for the planned new Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant, near Burnham-On-Sea, the government in Vienna said on Tuesday (June 23rd).
“We cannot accept that a technology such as this being portrayed through subsidies as being modern, sustainable and future-oriented,” Chancellor Werner Faymann said after a cabinet meeting.
Austria says the complaint will be formally filed next Monday, adding that it “is of symbolic value against nuclear power.”
Despite opposition from activists and several member states, the European Commission approved the Hinkley Point C project last October after Britain modified funding plans for the £16bn deal.
A spokeswoman for the government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change said: “We are confident that the European Commission’s state aid decision on Hinkley Point C is legally robust and have no reason to believe that Austria will submit a challenge of any merit.”
