Germany says it has reached agreement with France on the resumption of nuclear waste transfers between the French reprocessing plant in La Hague and Germany.

A spokesman for the environment ministry in Bonn said a start date for the deal had still to be fixed.

The previous German government halted the nuclear waste shipments last year after revelations that some convoys showed levels of radiation up to three-thousand times greater than allowed.

Since then reprocessed material for some one-hundred shipments has been stored in La Hague. The Social Democrat-Green coalition in Bonn wants to phase out nuclear power, but postponed action after protests from nuclear industry leaders in Germany and threats by Britain and France to sue if reprocessing contracts were cancelled.