Germany hasn't taken a decision yet whether it will permanently shut down eight nuclear power plants that are temporarily off-grid, a government spokesman said Friday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in the week after the onset of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima , Japan , had ordered the country's seven oldest nuclear power stations shut for a three-month safety review. An eighth plant had already been temporarily shut after an incident.

The government during the three-month moratorium also wants to decide whether to revise an earlier decision to grant a lifespan extension to existing nuclear plants.

"There has been no political definition yet, how to act at the end of the moratorium," Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said at a regular press conference, adding that at the end of the moratorium the situation won't be the same as at the beginning.

Seibert's statement came after Leipziger Volkszeitung had reported that party and parliamentary leaders of Merkel's government coalition had favored not to bring back online the nuclear plants that are now shut.

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