Western Europe has suffered a decline in the traditional hard-coal mining industry, based predominantly on underground mining, much of the region, especially Eastern Europe, remains heavily dependent upon utilisation of indigenous lignite and brown coal for a significant component of primary energy supply.
Western Europe is a major importer of steam coal for power generation. Colombia and South Africa dominate coal imports into Europe. The region includes the world’s largest lignite producer, Germany, and a number of the principal lignite producers and consumers, including Greece, Poland and Turkey. The largest hard-coal producer in Eastern Europe is Poland.
Following a period of restructuring, Poland's coal production has stabilised, and is now Europe's second largest producer, after Germany with coal operations being owned and controlled by the Ministry of Economy. Germany is the world’s largest lignite producer, Greece is a major lignite producer. Other coal producing countries include the United Kingdom and Spain.
