The government decided to close the old lignite-fuelled power stations in the Lusatia mining region. Berlin has committed to reducing CO2 emissions 40% by 2020, compared with 1990 levels. Yet the country still relies on highly polluting coal combustion for over 40% of its electricity. The government’s decision is a worry for Vattenfall, the owner of Lusatia’s mines and power plants. The Swedish company directly employs 8,000 people in the region. Its subcontractors employ another 9,000. To compensate for the closure of the power stations, the state plans to pay out a total of €1.6 billion to the companies concerned. The European Commission approved this measure. Thanks to the aid, Vattenfall plans no redundancies at Lusatia. No aid will go to the subcontractors and the authorities in the region estimate that a thousand jobs will be lost.
English: http://www.equaltimes.org/germany-s-difficult-departure-from …
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Willy De Backer wdebacker@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. Since June 2013 readers can consult our archive and search through all articles in our database at www.cbnarchive.eu. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.
© ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2016. All rights reserved. We encourage the distribution of this newsletter and of the information it contains, for non-commercial purposes and provided the source is credited. The ETUI is not responsible for the content of external internet sites. The ETUI is financially supported by the European Union. The European Union is not responsible for any use made of the information contained in this publication.
This email is sent from www.etui.org.