Coal consumption in Europe is falling rapidly in both absolute and relative terms, but it remains highly concentrated in a few countries and still plays a strategic—if diminishing—role in the continent’s energy system.
The European Union’s coal story is, above all, a story of scale and decline. At its peak around the late 1990s and early 2000s, EU hard coal consumption hovered near 300 million tonnes per year. From that plateau, it has entered a structural downtrend driven by climate policy, market forces, and technological change.
By 2023, EU hard coal consumption had fallen to an estimated 128 million tonnes, a drop of 42% in just six years. Brown coal (lignite), historically a mainstay of power generation in central and eastern Europe, followed a similar trajectory: EU consumption in 2023 is estimated at 223 million tonnes, 40% lower than in 2018. Taken together, hard coal and brown coal use in the EU is now dramatically below the levels that defined Europe’s industrial growth for much of the 20th century.
Looking ahead, projections from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and independent analysts point to further contraction. EU coal demand—covering both power and industry—is expected to fall below 300 million tonnes in 2025, a level that highlights not only the decline from earlier decades but also the shrinking future role of coal in the European energy mix. The IEA’s mid‑year coal update estimates that EU coal demand will shrink by 19% to around 287 million tonnes by 2025, driven by the acceleration of renewables, improved nuclear availability, and weak industrial and power demand growth.
Against this backdrop of decline, it is important to understand the internal distribution of coal consumption within the EU, because Europe’s coal use is not evenly spread. It is highly concentrated in a small group of countries, and the scale of their usage dwarfs that of the rest of the bloc.
On the hard coal side, Poland and Germany account for almost two‑thirds of total EU consumption, with Poland responsible for about 42% and Germany about 23% in 2023. The next tier—Italy, France, the Netherlands, Czechia, and Spain—each contributes only 3–6% of EU hard coal demand. Every other Member State, with the sole historical exception of Malta (which stopped using hard coal in 1996), reports at least some consumption, but in most cases only a few thousand tonnes or low single‑digit millions. The scale of Polish and German usage therefore defines the contours of the EU’s remaining hard coal dependence.
For brown coal (lignite), the concentration is even more marked. Germany alone represents 46% of EU brown coal consumption, followed by Poland at 18%, Czechia at 13%, Bulgaria at 9%, Romania at 7%, and Greece at 5%. In other words, six countries account for virtually all lignite burned in the European Union, and Germany’s position as both the largest lignite consumer and a major climate policy actor creates a striking internal tension.
This geographic concentration has important implications for both energy policy and socio‑economic transition. The EU‑wide numbers tell a story of rapid decline; the national numbers reveal a set of coal‑dependent regions where mines and power plants are still central to local economies. It is precisely for these regions that the EU has created a dedicated policy architecture, including the Coal Regions in Transition initiative and the Just Transition Mechanism, to support economic diversification, worker retraining, and social cushioning as coal capacity retires.
The scale of the decline is also visible in production and import patterns. EU hard coal production has been falling for decades, from 277 million tonnes in 1990 to just 50 million tonnes in 2023, an 82% reduction. That year, domestic production covered only 39% of inland hard coal consumption, compared with 71% in 1990, with the gap filled largely by imports. Import dependency for hard coal has grown long‑term, though it has fluctuated in recent years amid price spikes, sanctions on Russian coal, and pandemic‑related demand shocks.
For brown coal, the picture is different. Lignite is typically mined and burned domestically; imports and exports are negligible. That means lignite‑heavy systems are structurally tied to local resource basins. The ongoing decline of lignite in Germany, Poland, and southeast Europe is not just an energy transition but also a land‑use and regional development transition, as pit mines close and power plants shut down.
Recent years have seen episodes of volatility around this trend. Coal use jumped temporarily in 2021–2022 as gas prices spiked and Russian gas supplies to Europe were disrupted. Some countries brought coal plants back into service or extended planned closures to ensure security of supply. But the broad pattern is still downwards: the rebound did not restore coal use to its pre‑2018 levels, and subsequent years have resumed the longer‑term decline.
Eurostat’s data show that both hard coal and brown coal use in the EU are now at or near historical lows, even when compared to the pandemic trough of 2020. In 2023, brown coal consumption fell to its lowest recorded level in the EU, lower than during the height of COVID‑19 restrictions. That drop reflects the combined impact of policy (carbon pricing, emissions performance standards, coal phase‑out commitments), market drivers (cheap renewables, relative fuel prices), and structural economic change (de‑industrialisation in some sectors, improvements in energy efficiency).
The forward trajectory of European coal is shaped by several forces operating at scale:
– Climate policy and regulation. The EU’s climate framework—anchored in the European Green Deal and the “Fit for 55” package—raises the cost of CO₂ emissions through an increasingly stringent Emissions Trading System and complementary regulations. This directly erodes coal’s competitiveness against gas and renewables.
– Renewables expansion. Solar and wind capacity additions have been rapid enough to displace significant coal‑fired generation. Analysis of global electricity trends in 2025 indicates that growth in clean electricity has driven down coal and gas use in power systems, a pattern that is particularly visible in Europe.
– Nuclear availability. Improved performance and availability of Europe’s nuclear fleet, especially in France and some central European countries, further reduces the space for coal in the baseload mix.
– Demand dynamics. Weak industrial activity and stagnating electricity demand in the EU have reduced the need for coal‑fired generation and coal‑intensive industrial output. Energy efficiency gains and electrification of end uses (e.g., heat pumps) also reshape demand patterns.
– Market integration and gas prices. Coal and gas compete in Europe’s power sector. When gas prices are low relative to coal, gas plants tend to displace coal generation; when gas prices spike, coal can temporarily regain market share. The IEA has highlighted the close connection between coal and gas markets in Europe as a source of potential price volatility going forward.
In spite of the decline, coal markets in Europe have shown signs of short‑term stabilisation as of 2025. Some analyses report that the European coal market remained relatively steady through mid‑2025, with modest increases in imports and lignite output as lower wind and hydro output and higher gas prices supported coal‑fired generation. Steam coal prices for European delivery have stabilised around 100–110 US dollars per tonne, after sharp spikes and corrections in earlier years. This does not signal a reversal of the long‑term trend; instead, it illustrates how coal remains a marginal but still relevant balancing fuel in a system under transformation.
Globally, Europe’s declining coal use contrasts sharply with trends in other regions. Some estimates suggest that global coal consumption in 2025 may reach record highs, driven by growth in Asia, even as Europe and the United States cut their coal use to around 10 exajoules per year or less. This divergence underscores a paradox: Europe’s coal transition is advanced in relative terms, but its impact on global coal demand is limited by the much larger and still‑growing coal markets elsewhere.
Within Europe, the politics of scale are becoming more pronounced. Because so much of the remaining coal consumption is concentrated in a handful of countries and regions, EU‑wide averages can obscure the difficulty of local transitions. Poland’s power system still relies heavily on domestic coal, and despite a steep drop in imports and a noticeable 12.2% decline in thermal coal consumption in the Polish energy sector in early 2024, coal remains structurally embedded in its generation mix. Germany’s dual role—as a leader in renewables deployment and climate policy, and as the bloc’s largest lignite consumer—illustrates the tensions inherent in managing a just transition while meeting security of supply and industrial competitiveness objectives.
At the same time, the institutional landscape around coal has changed. Industry organisations such as EURACOAL continue to represent coal producers, generators, and related businesses across the continent, emphasising coal’s traditional role in energy security and price stability. Yet the dominant policy thrust at EU level is now toward managing coal’s exit, not revitalising the sector. The Coal Regions in Transition initiative, launched in 2017, targets regions where coal, lignite, peat, and oil shale once provided significant employment and tax revenue. The Just Transition Mechanism, adopted in 2021, provides financial tools to support workers, communities, and investors affected by the decline of coal and other carbon‑intensive industries. These instruments acknowledge that coal’s importance today is less about its share in the EU energy mix and more about its social and regional footprint.
From an energy‑system perspective, the scale of remaining coal use matters in several ways:
– It sets the baseline for emissions reductions: phasing out 128 million tonnes of hard coal and 223 million tonnes of brown coal (EU 2023 estimates) translates into hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO₂ avoided each year.
– It defines the infrastructure challenge: retiring or repurposing coal‑fired power plants, mines, rail corridors, and associated logistics at scale is a multi‑decade project.
– It frames investment needs: replacing coal capacity with renewables, storage, grids, demand‑side flexibility, and low‑carbon industrial processes requires massive capital mobilisation.
– It highlights system resilience issues: coal plants currently provide dispatchable capacity, inertia, and ancillary services. Removing them requires careful planning to ensure reliability.
In summary, coal consumption in Europe “to scale” is no longer about expansion; it is about the scale of contraction and the scale of the transition challenge. The EU has already cut coal use dramatically and is on track for further steep reductions by the mid‑2020s, with demand expected to fall below 300 million tonnes and continue downward thereafter. The remaining coal demand is concentrated in a limited number of countries and regions, which are now the focal point of both European climate policy and just transition efforts. Coal’s role in Europe is shrinking, but its legacy—in infrastructure, institutions, and regional economies—ensures that managing its decline remains one of the central tasks of the continent’s energy transition.
