Abstract
The German government and parliament legally decided in 2020 for climate policy reasons to phase out national coal power generation und by that the entire German coal industry until 2038 at the latest. Domestic hard coal mining had been finally closed already 2018. Now lignite mining, coal imports and all other parts of the coal value chain are set to be phased-out in the years to come. This paper discusses the situation in 2025, contrasting energy and regional policy consequences on the national level with the different global trends of coal consumption. The result is that there are valid economic arguments to see the arbitrarily decease of the German coal industry in another light.