German chancellor defends hard coal subsidies

Freiburg (Platts)--18Apr2005

German chancellor Gerhard Schroder spoke out in favor of continued state
support for hard coal at the annual meeting Sunday of the Bergwerk West mine
in the town of Kamp-Lintfort, hard coal producer Deutsche Steinkohle DSK said
Monday. 

The Bergwerk West mine produces about 3.3-mil mt of hard coal annually.
Referring to subsidies on the fuel, the chancellor said the government wanted
to "keep what we have" and that the opposition CDU's policy of reducing hard
coal subsidies by 50% by 2010 would be "a car crash waiting to happen" because
Germany needed coal to secure its future energy supply. 

Under a consensus reached between the government and the coal industry, German
hard coal subsidies are to fall by 65% to Eur2-bil by 2012 compared with 1996,
while the country's hard coal production is set to fall from 26-mil mt this
year to 16-mil mt in 2012. The German hard coal association says this is the
minimum needed to contribute to security of supply. Schroder also said he was
in favour of German coal giant RAG's listing on the stock exchange.

This story was originally published in Platts European Power Alert
http://www.europeanpoweralert.platts.com

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