The Federal Republic’s energy policy focuses on the following:

5>a free market policy in order to ensure a reliable, economical, efficient and environmentally friendly supply of energy. Through the intended liberalization and deregulation of the law on energy, the dynamics of competition are to play a greater role in the electricity and natural gas industries continuation of efforts to reach a consensus on future energy policy, especially with regard to the utilization of nuclear energy ensuring an environmentally friendly energy supply, this being one of the main objectives. One focus of the Federal Government’s efforts in the 1990s has been the development and application of a comprehensive strategy for protecting the climate. The declaration on global warming prevention, which was issued in March 1996 after intensive negotiations between the Federal Government and German industry and trade, as well as the self-imposed commitment by the business community contained therein to reduce CO2 levels, is an important step in the right direction; and continued efforts to economize on energy consumption and to promote research on and use of long-term alternative sources of energy, especially those of the renewable kind.

Given Germany’s heavy dependence on imports, cooperation with the other members of the European Union as well as within the International Energy Agency and with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the successor states of the Soviet Union is of crucial importance.