German cabinet members voted in a special session Monday morning to confirm government plans to shut down all the country's nuclear power stations by 2022.

This decision means the proposal can now be debated in the houses of parliament, with Chancellor Angela Merkel's government currently hoping to pass the new law on July 8.

Merkel's administration is seeking to hurry through its energy about-face as quickly as possible, having radically altered its approach to nuclear power since the accident at Japan's Fukushima power plant and the resultant backlash to atomic energy in Germany.