Austria has filed a complaint against the European Commission for granting European Union state subsidies to Britain to build a new nuclear power plant.

Government officials confirmed Monday that Vienna had filed the complaint with the European Court of Justice.

"Subsidies are there to support modern technologies that lie in the general interest of all EU member states. This is not the case with nuclear power," Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said in a statement.

Vienna claims the EU-funded Hinkley Point C project in England is against European regulations and risks distorting the energy market.

Several EU states had opposed the project before its approval. Nevertheless, the European Commission approved the project in October 2014 after Britain modified funding plans for the deal.

The project was initially estimated to cost $25 billion (about 22.6 billion euros). However, EU officials now estimate the project will cost $38 billion (about 34.5 billion euros).

Under the disputed deal, two new reactors will be constructed in southwest England by the French energy group Électricité de France (EDF), and in return, London would supply France with part of the electricity generated at the plant for 35 years at a fixed rate.

"We are confident that the European Commission's state aid decision on Hinkley Point C is legally robust," a spokeswoman for Britain's Department of Energy and Climate Change said last week.

The EDF is France's main electricity generation and distribution company and manages all 59 nuclear reactors in the country. 

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