The coal phase-out of Lusatia: A second structural break after reunification

In Lusatia, what many citizens experienced after reunification is currently being repeated: a profound economic and social break that destroys old structures and is only slowly being replaced by new ones. For centuries, mining was considered the economic lifeline of this region, shaped the cities, securing income and donating a collective identity. with thatThe decision to exit from the lignite is threatened with another tremor, which reminds many people of the abrupt upheavals of the early 1990s.

Loss of economic base and threatening deindustrialization

The coal phase-out has drastic consequences for the regional economy. The loss of employment in mining and power plants, but also the decline of numerous suppliers and craft businesses, causes economic cycles to break apart. Similar to reunification, entire regions suddenly lose their industrial base. At that time, the transition fromcentral planned economy to the market economy the companies unprepared; Today, political decisions are that eliminate the basics of business of many companies overnight.

Municipal crash and the crisis of public finances

The municipalities are also feeling the consequences immediately. Due to the abolition of trade taxes, leases and energy sources, cities and municipalities lack the means to maintain public infrastructure. The state is trying to counteract this, but even billion-dollar aid packages are not enough to compensate for the economic bloodletting. The memories of the years of emergency afterReunification wakes up when communities had to laboriously save themselves from the consequences of deindustrialization.

Social erosion and loss of regional identity

More than in other regions of Germany, people in Lusatia have a deep emotional connection to their industrial past. Mining was not only a workplace, but also a cultural center. His decline threatens a loss of social cohesion. Clubs, festivals and neighborhoods that have grown around the opencast mine over generations are falling apart. It is createdThe feeling that history is repeated: how after reunification the familiar ties break up, places lose their function, and the regional identity is disappearing.

Corporate bankruptcies through energy prices and eroding competitiveness

In parallel with the coal phase-out, rising energy prices are increasing economic pressure. Energy-intensive companies – from chemistry to metal processing – are under existential stress. The high electricity costs make production unprofitable, orders are migrating, and insolvent companies leave empty halls. The economic consequences go far beyond the Lusatiaand remember the collapse of entire branches of industry in the post-reunification period. The difference is that this time it is not technological aging, but political targets that force structural change.

Demographic consequences and emigration

The demographic crisis is also intensifying with the dwindling prospects. Young, qualified people are moving away to find work in high-growth regions. Older generations and falling birth rates are left behind. This development is similar in many ways to the wave of emigration after reunification, when the promise of West German labor markets the East Germansregions bleeding dry. Today, Lusatia is again facing the risk of no longer securing a succession in working life and losing its future prospects.

The second structural break – a painful learning process

The comparison with the first structural break after reunification is therefore obvious. Then as now, Lusatia is at a turning point where old certainties fall into disrepair and new paths are hesitantly emerging. Even if support programs and political promises try to create hope, many people feel the loss of self-esteem, stability and identity. the new oneStructural rupture could shape the region in the long term – economically, socially and culturally. While reunification brought an abrupt system change, a state-controlled transformation is now taking place, the price of which is likely to be similar to many as the one they had to pay before.