In the Czech Republic, it is the Ministry for Industry and Commerce which is responsible for energy policy. According to the Ministry, the country’s power stations – driven by coal, water, wind, nuclear power, and other energy sources – generated a total of more than 83,000GWh in 2003. As the country’s energy needs grew more slowly in the two preceding decades than the generation potential of the energy industry, energy exports could be stepped up.There are three groups of companies supplying the country’s energy market – the ČEZ Group, which comprises five utilities and leads the central European as well as the Czech market; Jihočeská energetika a.s. and Jihomoravská energetika a.s., two companies which form part of E.ON Česká republica a.s. and, therefore, of the Munich E.ON energy group; and Prazská energetika a.s., which supplies Prague, the capital. All industrial energy sources are operated by the ČEZ itself, which owns two nuclear power stations, ten coal-fired power stations, twelve hydroelectric power stations, one wind power station, and a solar-power complex.In the Slovak Republic, energy policy is handled by the Ministry for Economics, which mainly aims to secure a living standard that is comparable to that of the EU member countries. In the period from 1995 to 2003, the Czech GDP expanded by 35.7 percent while energy consumption increased by no more than 6.5 percent, bringing the country a good deal closer towards that goal. In total, the country’s nuclear, fossil, and hydroelectric power stations generated some-what more than 31,000GWh in 2003.Most of the energy in Slovakia is generated by three utilities that sprang from the former state-owned Slovenský energetický podník, namely Slovenské elektrárne a.s., Slovenskâ elektrizačná prenosová sústava a.s., and Tepláren Košice a.s. The country’s energy market, which was comprehensively deregulated by the Dzurinda government in the autumn of 2004, is served by three local distributors, ZSE a.s., SSE a.s., and VSE a.s.At the moment, the infrastructure operated by these enterprises includes 29 hydroelectric power stations, two nuclear power stations, five power stations running on fossil fuels, and a variety of biomes and bigots power stations as well as an array of solar-energy panels measuring well above 50,000 sqm.The future energy policy of the Czech Republic is framed by three pillars – a maximum of independence, security, and reasonable development. Ranking first among the sources of energy are fossil fuels, destined to remain an important pillar in the country’s energy balance until 2030. Ranking next in importance, there is nuclear power, which is to be enhanced further because of the peculiar geographical and geological conditions prevailing in Czechia. The two existing power stations, Dukovany and Temelín, are to be upgraded and modified to conform to international safety standards as a first step. Finally, the Ministry for Industry and Commerce plans to increase the use of renewable energy sources to a considerable extent, with a particular focus on biomass.The Czech Republic is a signatory state of the Kyoto Protocol, which came into force in February. If that Protocol should be reformulated and emission-reduction targets based on per-capita emissions before 2011, the country, one of the ten worst environmental polluters in the world, would be in extremely hot water. After all, the remaining industries which form the backbone of the Czech national economy consume a great deal of energy, which the government aims to reduce.The Temelín project and its defence on the international stage enjoy particular political support, which demonstrates that the Prague government firmly intends to keep the country independent in terms of energy policy. The country’s focus on nuclear energy is an investment in the future, the intention being to safeguard Czechia’s competitiveness on the increasingly hard-fought commodity market.Although several oil and gas pipelines run through the Slovak Republic, placing the country in a strategically favourable position, it has hardly any resources of its own in that respect. Therefore, reducing Slovakia’s dependence on fossil-fuel imports is of outstanding importance. The strategy pursued by the government in this regard is four-fold – using nuclear energy, using domestic sources of primary energy, increasing the use of renewable energy sources, and promoting co-generation.The Bratislava government also considers nuclear power the country’s primary source of energy. Thus, the Dzurinda government decided to complete the last two blocks of the nuclear power station at Mochovce, hoping to strike a profitable deal with Western energy utilities by selling the expected generation surplus. On the other hand, there is as yet no answer to the question of how spent fuel rods are to be disposed of.As ever, Slovakia mainly relies on hydroelectric power among the renewable sources of energy. As the country possesses plentiful water resources in the Tatra range and elsewhere, there is quite some potential for increasing its hydroelectric power output. The government mainly pursues four objectives in this context – to safeguard the supply of safe energy, to lower energy consumption, to safeguard independence in energy generation, and to ensure the sustainable development of the energy industry.In the field of environmental protection, the Bratislava government endeavours to lower the emission of greenhouse gases in conformance with the Kyoto Protocol. Its intention is to guide the consumption of primary energy so that gas and nuclear energy increasingly replace liquid and solid fuels in power generation.Both the Czech and the Slovak Republics suffer from the price of oil and gas on the world market. However, Czechia has a good chance of protecting its economy from this development better than other countries in central Europe, such as Germany.The Bratislava government has been pursuing a policy of comprehensive reform for quite some time, in which energy policy is no more than one component. However, if success were to be achieved in this particular area, the entire policy of reform in the country would be given a valuable boost.