Germany's coalition government decided early Monday to shut down all of the country's nuclear power plants by 2022, a policy change prompted by Japan's nuclear disaster, the environment minister said.

Meanwhile, the country's seven oldest reactors taken off the grid pending safety inspections following the catastrophe at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant in March will remain offline permanently, Norbert Roettgen said. The country has 17 reactors in total.

Roettgen praised the coalition agreement after negotiations through the night between the governing parties.

"This is coherent. It is clear. That's why it is a good result," he said in Berlin.

Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2010 had pushed through measures to extend the lifespan of the country's 17 reactors with the last one scheduled to go offline in 2036, but she reversed her policy in the wake of the disaster.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, stands alone among the world's major industrialized nations in its determination to gradually replace nuclear power with renewable energy sources. (read more)