Austrian bank Erste Bank, under fire from anti-nuclear activits, has decided not to help finance the Mochovce atomic plant in Slovakia, just 150 kilometres (95 miles) from Vienna, a spokesman told AFP Thursday.
"We've reached an agreement with the company (Slovenske Elektrarne, Slovakia's leading power supplier) that the loan we have awarded them will not be used to finance nuclear activities," Erste Bank spokesman Michael Mauritz said.
The Austrian bank's wholly-owned Slovakian subsidiary, Slovenska Sporitelna, has teamed up with eight other banks to open a credit line of 800 million euros (1.3 billion dollars) to Slovenkse Elektrarne.
Originally, the money was to have gone to expanding Mochovce with two additional nuclear generators by 2013.
Mauritz declined to say how much of the money Erste Bank was putting up.
Expanding Mochovce will compensate for the closure of two nuclear reactors at another power plant, Jaslovske Bohunice, by the end of this year.
Slovakia had pledged to dismantle the two Soviet-built reactors in order to join the European Union.
Anti-nuclear groups, including Greenpeace, have protested regularly against Austria financing the plant since Austria rejected nuclear power in a referendum in 1978.
In March, Greenpeace protestors "walled" in a branch of Erste Bank with a brick wall at the main entrance to protest against the financing deal for the Mochovce plant.
