Berlin, Bremen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg and Rhineland Palatinate have filed a legal complaint with the country's highest court in Karlsruhe, challenging the German government's decision to extend the running times of the country's 17 nuclear reactors by an average of 12 years.

Controlled by the center-left Social Democratic Party, the largest opposition party, the five states argue the government didn't follow correct legislative procedures when pushing the nuclear decision through Parliament last year. Rhineland Palatinate also says that the government doesn't take into account people's safety with the decision, given that some of the older reactors are error-prone. None of the five states are home to nuclear reactors.

The Social Democrats and the Greens will file a separate legal complaint with the court, arguing that the decision is unconstitutional, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reports.

Government lawmakers last October gave the green light to Merkel's energy bill, which includes the nuclear decision, in the Bundestag, the lower house of Parliament, where they hold a majority.

They've lost that majority in the Bundesrat, the upper house of Parliament, which wasn't consulted. That's the basis for the legal complaint.

The opposition is furious at the government for prolonging nuclear power after a previous government, composed of Social Democrats and Greens together with the country's four main utilities in 2000 had agreed that all reactors must go offline by 2021. The current decision would see them running until the mid-2030s.

The government, however, with its nuclear decision goes against the majority of the population.

Germans are largely opposed to nuclear power and have staged several large-scale protests ahead and after the parliamentary vote, with thousands of anti-nuclear protesters taking the streets last weekend.

Merkel says she wants to keep nuclear in the mix longer as a transition fuel until renewables are ready to take over completely. She argues that her energy bill contains ambitious pledges to green the country's energy mix.

Germany aims to boost the share of renewables to 80 percent of the electricity consumption by 2050, halve the country's energy consumption by 2050 and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

The legal proceedings launched Monday could take years, observers say.

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