State premier says east German coal region won’t follow early phase-out agreed in west

The premier of eastern German lignite mining state Saxony-Anhalt has said his state will not follow an agreement on an early coal phase-out made in the heavy industry state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) in the west of the country, newswire dpa reports. State leader Reiner Haseloff, of the conservative CDU, said that bringing the coal phase-out forward to 2030 was not feasible. “A general phase-out in 2038 is the current legal framework and is realistic. It was agreed with a broad societal consensus,” Haseloff said. Especially during the current energy crisis, all power production should be kept on the grid to prevent the threat of further shortages, he said, adding that a phase-out before 2038 would weaken Germany as an industrial location.

The German government and the state government of coal mining and heavy industry state North Rhine-Westphalia, along with energy company RWE, agreed to push forward the coal phase-out in the state to 2030, eight years earlier than agreed in German coal exit law. However, two lignite power plants in the state that were supposed to go off the grid this year will remain in operation until 2024 to provide additional power production capacity amid the energy crisis.