Local supervisors to approve Emsland reactor restart

FRANKFURT, July 31 (Reuters) - Nuclear supervisors in the northern German state of Lower Saxony said on Friday the Emsland nuclear reactor operated by RWE (RWEG.DE) was ready for a restart, giving the federal environment ministry a deadline until Aug. 1 afternoon to object to it going ahead.

The 1,400 megawatt unit went offline last Friday but a faulty switch was replaced satisfactorily, the Lower Saxony ministry said in a statement.

The case had taken on a political dimension as the federal ministry, led by a different party, demanded to be given a final say over the restart.

"We intend to approve a restart (to test the function of the new switch) unless the federal ministry expresses substantiated concern until tomorrow afternoon," the statement said.

RWE has said the plant is ready to operate again.

(Reporting by Vera Eckert, editing by Anthony Barker)