Slovakia has called on the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and other financial institutions to create a financial mechanism to support the development of nuclear reactors.

Speaking in Slovakia’s capital Riga at an EBRD roundtable on ‘The role of international financial institutions in the nuclear sector’, the country’s finance minister Ladislav Kamenický said the financing of nuclear reactors was a common theme of discussion with other European nations.

He said that financing a nuclear plant was a long-term process of sometimes 10-15 years that needed broad political support and with costs of around €15bn ($17.3bn) for a new plant.

“We would be happy if, for example EBRD, with other international financial institutions, started to find some financial structure that could be used for building up reactors and power plants,” said Kamenický.