Germany will keep its last three nuclear power plants operating until at least April 2023, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced on Monday amid a global energy crisis, AFP reported.

“A legal framework will be put in place to allow the operation of the Isar 2, Neckarwestheim 2 and Emsland nuclear power plants after December 31, 2022 and until April 15, 2023,” the chancellor’s letter to the government, obtained by AFP, reads. will see

Previously, the government only announced that two of the three plants would operate after the end of 2022.

Europe’s largest economy is trying to reduce its dependence on Russian energy imports after the war in Ukraine.

The fate of the Emsland plant in northern Germany has caused friction within Scholz’s coalition government, particularly between the anti-nuclear Greens and the liberals in the FDP.

But the chancellor finally decided without reaching a consensus.

Germany originally planned to abandon nuclear power by the end of 2022, but the war in Ukraine derailed its plans.

The German government has also decided to keep several coal-fired power plants running until spring 2024, even though it has set a target of phasing out coal by 2030.

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg said in a recent interview with German television that it would be better to continue using Germany’s existing nuclear power plants than to switch to coal.