German parties want utilities to shoulder nuclear shutdown costs

BERLIN (Reuters) - German parties negotiating the formation of a coalition government want to make utilities pay more to dismantle their nuclear power plants and protect taxpayers from billions of euros in related costs, documents obtained by Reuters show.

Such a move, if adopted by a coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and the Social Democrats (SPD), would be a blow to E.ON, RWE, Vattenfall and EnBW who have already put aside 30 billion euros in provisions.