BERLIN (Reuters) – The German government has agreed to pay nuclear operators 2.4 billion euros in compensation for an early nuclear shutdown after the Fukushima disaster, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily reported on Thursday, citing government sources.
Germany decided to decommission some nuclear power plants immediately after the Japanese disaster in 2011 and the rest under an accelerated schedule up to 2022.
The Constitutional Court ruled in 2016 that the nuclear phase-out was legal, but had called for compensation. In November, the court again found fault with the government’s legislation.
It was unclear from the report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine how the 2.4 billion euros in compensation, which will come from taxpayers’ money, would be divided between the operators, such as RWE, EnBW, E.ON and Vattenfall.
The environment ministry and RWE declined to comment.
(Additional reporting by Markus Wacket and Tom Kaeckenhoff; Reporting by Madeline Chambers; editing by David Evans)
