Mining trade union head warns of sacrificing coal to save diesel engines

The incoming German government must not agree to phase out coal-fired power production in exchange for concessions to diesel cars, Michael Vassiliadis, head of Germany’s largest mining trade union, IG BCE, said in an interview with the General-Anzeiger Bonn. Vassiliadis argued that a possible new German government coalition of the conservative CDU/CSU alliance, the economically liberal FDP and the environmentalist Green Party might broker a deal in which the Greens’ demand for coal plants to be shut down is accepted by the other parties in return for Green restraint over car emissions. “I can only warn against making deals of this kind,” Vassiliadis said. Shutting down a large fraction of Germany’s coal plants would instantly make mining economically unviable, raise costs for energy-intensive industries, and put a strain on the electricity grid, he argued.

Read the interview in German here.

For more information, see the CLEW factsheet Climate & energy stumbling blocks for Jamaica-coalition talks and the CLEW article Coalition watch – The road to a new German government.