The Vienna regional court confirmed that it has ruled in favour of the spokeswoman of the opposition Green Party, Eva Glawischnig, who brought a complaint in 1998 that the plant constituted "a danger to the people and the property" of neighbouring Austria.

It ruled that the management of the power plant, Slovenske Elektrarne (SE), should assure that safety at the plant "by taking the necessary measures to ensure that radio-active leaks do not occur again," ORF public radio reported.

"This means that either the plant should conform to safety norms or it should be shut down," Glawischnig said Wednesday. "This is made very clear by the ruling."

She said the ruling set a precedent because it was the first time in the history of the European Union that a court has ruled that a nuclear plant in one country could pose a danger to the people of another.

Glawischnig said "there was not a shadow of a doubt" that the ruling should be obeyed by Bratislava.

"In commercial matters a Slovakian company is obliged to implement a court ruling handed down against it in Vienna, this is an everyday occurrence," she said.

"But is good to see that now this also applies to the nuclear industry," she added.

In Bratislava, a spokesman for SE, Dobroslav Chrobak, said that the company intends to appeal the ruling but did not say before which court it planned to take the matter.

Daniela Kissig, an expert in international law at the University of Graz, said "it is highly unlikely that SE will bow to the demands of a foreign court."

"The Slovak authorities could argue that shutting down the plant, even temporarily, would interfere with public order because it could leave part of the country without electricity," she said.

Austria banned nuclear energy following a referendum on the subject in 1978, which the government lost.

The country is unhappy about the fact its neighbours operate nuclear power plants close to its borders and that it has no control over them.

Last May, just after Slovakia and nine other states joined the European Union, Austria strongly criticised plans to build two new reactors at Mochove, calling it an "insult".

But in Slovakia, where public opinion is in favour of using nuclear power for electricity, the opposition has warned the government that it would amount to "high treason" if it did not proceed with building the two new reactors.

In October, Austria again signalled its outrage when Slovakian Economy Minister Pavol Rusko said that he wanted to delay the closure of a Soviet-era reactor at the nuclear power plant at Jaslovske Bohunice from 2006, as stipulated in the country's EU accession treaty, until 2008.

Reactors one and two at the plant together produce 22.6 percent of Slovakia's electricity, and should respectively be shut down by 2006 and 2008, according to the treaty.

In 2000, tension arose between Vienna and Prague because the Czech Republic started its nuclear plant at Temelin, some 60 kilometres from the Austrian border.

Ecologists have taken the matter to the European Court of Justice.

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