Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger said rising electricity costs put the country’s economy at risk of “collapse”, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

Heger said in an interview that rising prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would “kill” the country’s economy unless it received billions of euros in support from Brussels.

Slovakia’s prime minister has warned that he will have to nationalize the country’s electricity supply if he does not receive such support, the report added.

Although Slovakia is a major producer of nuclear and hydropower, its biggest energy supplier made the expensive decision to sell its excess electricity to energy traders at the start of the year.

These traders are now selling the contracts back to Slovakia at market prices that are about five times higher.

“Slovaks are buying for 500 euros what they used to sell for 100 euros,” Heger said, adding that the European Commission’s plan for a 140 billion euro tax on energy producers in the bloc would not work in Slovakia because of this.

“If we want to have an exceptional tax, it has to be European,” he told the Financial Times.

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