NRW needs federal funds to cope with coal exit – economy minister

The Economy Minister of Germany’s most populous state North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Andreas Pinkwart, has called for compensation payments from the federal budget if Germany accelerates its coal exit, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. “The coalition agreement has changed many of our plans, especially in terms of renewable energy and grid expansion,” Pinkwart argues. NRW heavily relies on lignite and hard coal, which is why the plan announced by Germany’s would-be coalition parties, the conservative CDU/CSU alliance and the Social Democrats (SPD), to present a coal exit date soon “will be especially burdensome for NRW,” where about 30,000 jobs directly depend on the coal industry, the article says. Pinkwart says his state “is ready to make its necessary contribution to climate protection,” but “we need an adequate share of federal funds for that.”

See the CLEW factsheet Coal in Germany for background.