Greening the Heartlands of Coal in Europe: Insights from a Czech-German-Polish Dialogue on Energy Issues

One weakness of the current layout of the Energiewende is that, for the most part, it focuses on the national level alone. The impacts of this transition on neighbouring countries have hardly been addressed in Germany. Conversely, some of Germany’s European neighbours have called its nuclear phase-out into question. This is especially the case for Poland and the Czech Republic. At the same time, the energy transition is already having discernible effects on Germany’s neighbours, especially on their grid stability and electricity markets, without there being adequate consultation and coordination mechanisms in place. While Polish and Czech politicians are concerned about the consequences of the German energy transition for their energy systems, German decision-makers are largely unaware of their misgivings. These gaps in information and communication give rise to misconceptions and political friction, often fed by misleading and sometimes populist media coverage.

This report is the result of a trilateral expert group's discussions held in Prague, Warsaw and Berlin over the course of 2013.