Germany to pay nuclear operators 2.4 bln euros for plant closures

FRANKFURT, March 5 (Reuters) - The German government has agreed to pay nuclear operators 2.4 billion euros ($2.86 billion) in compensation for forcing them to shut their nuclear plants early in response to the the Fukushima disaster, ministries said on Friday.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily had reported on Thursday that a sum of 2.4 billion euros will be made available from the general budget, citing government sources.

The four affected companies are the German listed utilities RWE, which will get 880 million euros, and E.ON , which will get 42.5 million euros, as well as Swedish state-owned rival Vattenfall, which will get 1.425 billion euros, and mainly publicly-owned German EnBW , which will get 80 million euros.

A Constitutional Court ruling in November had found in favour of the companies in their complaint that the government's previous offer had not gone far enough.

The court called for a speedy settlement of the dispute, which was mainly pursued by Vattenfall.

The court had already ruled in 2016 that while the nuclear phase-out was legal, the operators needed to be better compensated for lost production. ($1 = 0.8389 euros) (Reporting by Vera Eckert, Tom Kaeckenhoff and Markus Wacket, editing by Thomas Escritt)