Opposition parties called for the Environment Minister, Angela Merkel, to resign in the wake of revelations that convoys of nuclear waste sent to Britain and France by train contained radiation levels up to 3,000 times greater than the permitted limits.

But the government maintained that responsibility for the high radiation levels lay with the nuclear industry. She als said there was no threat to people in Germany.

Mrs Merkel: "resposibility lays with the nuclear industry"

"At no moment was there contamination in Germany," she added.

Chancellor Kohl stood firmly behind his minister, whom he said had carried out her duty.

The row blew up last week when Mrs Merkel revealed that the German nuclear industry and the French nuclear agency Cogema had failed to inform the government about problems with previous convoys, and had sat on information since the 1980s which she did not know until last April.

Mrs Merkel has suspended all waste shipments pending an investigation, and has drawn up plans to strengthen monitoring procedures.

Greenpeace protest

As parliament prepared for the debate, demonstrators from the environmental group Greenpeace mounted their own protest, unfurling banners near the parliament building demanding the abolition of nuclear energy.

The issue of nuclear waste transport has prompted huge demonstrations across Germany over the last two years. The most recent was in March this year, as the government moved waste to a site in the north of the country.

The BBC correspondent in Berlin says many of those who demonstrated then will now feel vindicated about their concerns, and the confident government performance in parliament is unlikely to deflect continuing pressure over the issue.