(ANSA-AFP) - BERLIN, JANUARY 16 - Germany could end electricity generation from coal in 2035, three years earlier than previously planned, under a pact sealed Thursday between Chancellor Angela Merkel and leaders of affected states. Merkel and premiers from Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Brandenburg agreed overnight a "shutdown plan" for the country's power plants using the highly polluting fossil fuel, her spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement. Until now, Berlin had named 2038 as the latest possible date to power down the final coal-fired generators. Now, reviews in 2026 and 2029 will examine "whether the moment to shut down the plants can be brought forward by three years," Seibert said. German finance minister Olaf Scholz said Thursday coal plant operators would receive billions of euros in compensation for the planned shutdown of electrity generation using the fuel. The government will pay companies running power plants set to shut down this decade a total of 4.35 billion euros ($4.9 billion) "over the 15 years following the shutdown," Scholz told reporters in Berlin, calling the cost "affordable". (ANSA-AFP).