When Germany announced its plan to phase out nuclear power stations last month, shares in the big four German power companies rose. The agreement made with the German government would see Eon, RWE, EnBW and Vattenfall pay a nuclear-fuel rods tax of EUR2.3bn until 2016 - but the market had been expecting worse.
But today Moody's has warned that the impact of the tax might yet force a downgrade of the companies' credit ratings.
