Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has reopened a debate over whether Italy should use nuclear energy, saying the country was penalised by over-reliance on imported energy.

The issue made front page headlines in Rome today, with scientists, environmentalists, and economists offering their views. Italy imports around 85% of its energy, well above the European average.

Nuclear power was banned in Italy following a referendum in 1987, a year after the explosion and fire at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine. Italy’s four nuclear plants were shut down and dismantled.

In September 2003 the country was hit by a blackout that left the whole country in darkness, except for the people of Sardinia and a few tiny islands that have their own electric supplies.

The outage apparently began when a tree branch hit a power line in Switzerland during a storm.

But Green Party leader Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio reacted to Berlusconi’s comments by dismissing nuclear energy as “dangerous and uneconomical”.

“Italy and the European Union should focus on the development of renewable and safe energy, without giving way to nuclear nostalgia,” he said.