German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has asked the economy, environment and finance ministries to lay the legal framework to keep the country's three nuclear power plants operational until as late as April 15, 2023, a letter seen by Reuters showed on Monday.

Germany had planned to complete a phase-out of nuclear power by the end of this year, but a collapse in energy supplies from Russia because of the war in Ukraine has prompted the government to keep two plants on standby.

Lengthy disagreements within the ruling coalition government over the merits and drawbacks of nuclear energy delayed the implementation of a draft law to put the two plants on reserve beyond their planned phase-out at the end of this year.

As well as the Isar II and Neckarwestheim II plants already included in the draft law, Finance Minister Christian Lindner has been pushing to keep a third plant, Emsland, operational until spring 2023, which Economy Minister Robert Habeck - whose Green Party is historically anti-nuclear - agreed to.

"I would ask that the relevant proposed regulations be presented to the cabinet as soon as possible as part of the distribution of responsibilities," Scholz wrote in the letter dated on Monday.

Scholz also requested that the ministries present an "ambitious" law to increase energy efficiency, and put into law an agreement to phase out coal by 2030.

Lindner welcomed the chancellor's request, saying the legal framework could be created immediately.

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