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Closed Aninoasa coal mine | Image from Al Jazeera video
Aninoasa, Romania is the only city in Europe to have declared bankruptcy.
Seven years since the city’s coal mine closed – the only major employer – and two months since declaring bankruptcy, nearly every young person has fled Aninosa. The population is now made up almost entirely of pensioners, Al Jazeera reports (in Bosnian).
When the Anonisa state-owned coal mine closed in 2006, it left nearly every person in the town unemployed. Now almost all of them rely on mining pensions of between 100 and 500 euros per month.
Apart from some stores, a bakery and a hair salon, the city has no business.
One former coal mine employee told an Al Jazeera reporter that things were better “even during Ceausescu’s time.”
Coal mining is an endangered industry in Eastern Europe. Although many countries have long traditions of coal mining, they often depend on state subsidies to operate and a 2010 European Union law states that all money-losing mines will have to close by 2018.
But Europe’s coal industry is peanuts in the grand scheme of things. Accounting for just 2.5% of global coal production, the markets will barely notice the closure of state-subsidized mines. The industry directly and indirectly employs about 100,000 people in Europe, according to EU Business.
7 Comments
Mara
Let’s no have the same situation at Rosia Montana. Mining should continue because there are people there with great experience on this field and teenagers also fled abroad. Romania can become the number 1 gold producer in Europe!
Robert Nistor
sad situation, but i have some hopes for another poor region in Apuseni which has a chance via gold investments. Our country must take care of its people and investments are a priority right now
Alexandra
i’m sorry for Aninoasa but at the faumous Rosia Montana will be another situatian, happy one, if the mining activity will return in the area
Steffen
It’s all very well that over-fed, well paid Euro-bureaucrats make laws that prevent member states from subsidizing mining, when the reality is that whole communities that want to work are denied the opportunity to provide a viable living for themselves! Time for governments to wake up and not allow their independence to be stolen from them. I agree with the other comments below.
frankinca
Another vote for the gold mine. People do need jobs/work ….and even if gold mining becomes even more widely an employment/production sector, then the price of it might come down due to mining surpluses. Maybe there might be enough to make it a reserve/wealth storage vehicle again, because there is enough to allow everyone to store it as needed/wanted. a WINNER IF THERE EVER WAS ONE.
frankinca
Thanks Ana for bringing this to our attention. Did you find this story yourself or did someone point it out to you who is interested in the stalled mining project that is being discussed lately? Just want to know how and why things happen…. Good reporting and from you picture you would make a good tennis player. Subtle comparison to Ana K. the Russian star. Where are the environmentalists commenters? who want to bury me and the project, ala Kruschev.
sailormac
reports Al Jazeera