Title: Regional Profile Report - Central Europe

LEADER Action Group (LAG) (“Aktionsgruppe Mansfeld-Südharz”), which coordinates the
LEADER projects in the region. The focus of the LAG rests on offers for small and medium-
sized enterprises and touristic infrastructures (“Kupferspuren”). The LAG serves as an
important nodal point for different ideas and actors in the district, especially because of the
capacity to turn ideas into projects. Besides the work of the LAG, other important networks
are linked to the former mining industries and its management. These include actors such as
official miner’s associations, as an important group aiming at the preservation of the mining
heritage, as well as organisations such as the “Training Center of Industry and Commerce in
Sachsen-Anhalt” (“Bildungswerk der Unternehmerverbände Sachsen-Anhalt”, BdU), which
play an important organisational role for the day-to-day running of ReSOURCE project in the
Mansfeld-Südharz region.
Nevertheless, due to the fact that the district lacks a major scientific institution, the region has
problems to create useful networks for the utilisation of mining potentials. Although there
have been contacts to some scientific institutions by personal relations and some contacts in
the local economy, the overall networking capacity in this field remains low.
2.7. Conclusion
The region of Mansfeld-Südharz contained one of the biggest deposits of copper shale in
Central Europe and was therefore for a long time an important mining district in the central
part of Germany. The closure of the mines in 1990 has left the region struggling with the
outcome of this structural change up to the present date.
Being in many ways at the periphery of economic development and without necessary
infrastructures to boost regional economic development, the usual problems of post-mining
region have become even more accentuated in Mansfeld-Südharz. Constantly high
unemployment rates and a very problematic demographic development resulted in a difficult
overall scenario for the future development of the region. Complicated by the reshaping of
administrative units and regional antagonisms the region has no coherent strategic
development agenda in place, even 20 years after the last mining activities have ceased.
Within the Mansfeld-Südharz region the national rehabilitation programme “Megasites” is
targeting two extremely polluted sites. Besides this specifically focused programme the
region lacks broader national support to cope with its post-mining legacy. This leaves
regional and local actors in command of the revival of the region, who have until now not
managed to find a common ground for the establishment of a joint development strategy.
Regional Profile Mansfeld-Südharz
27