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TWST: What other trends have you faced in the market? What about the increased European Union and the growth of the Internet? How has that affected the business?

Mr. Maichel: First of all, within the existing EU as it stands today, it affects the market because never was there such an influx of foreign or European competitors. Right now, for instance, EdF purchased part of the south-western German electricity company Energie Baden-Wurttemberg, and Vattenfall purchased a part of the sixth biggest company, which is Hamburg Electricity Works, HEW, as well as a position in the Berlin energy company BEWAG. That together with the Finnish company Fortem's latest acquisition in Germany, as well as ENRON trading gross makes Germany obviously one of the most interesting places for competitors in Europe, and in fact Germany will take the thrust of the competitive environment that we see right now in Germany, the more so since Germany - but not only Germany - Germany has opened the market by 100%, whereas other countries like France are opening already only to the minimum of what the EU directive wants to have. That is also a concern of ours, but we think that if liberalisation has to take place and we have to go into competition, we have to have a competitive playing-field, which is not the case vis-à-vis France and Italy.

TWST: What would you say are your company's advantages? What makes VEW better than your competitors? And what or who do you see as your competition at the moment?

Mr. Maichel: We think we have an edge vis-à-vis our competitors in two areas: one is that we can supply gas, electricity and waste management services, so that we can already right now offer a multi-energy service to our customers, which will give us really a good competitive position. The second is that we are the first in Germany to create a brand for power and gas, which is a product sold under the name Evivo. We have placed Evivo right now in our existing supply area, but we intend in the long run also to have this product sold wherever we can in Europe. I should add that the biggest challenge for the company right now is that our supervisory board issued a mandate to negotiate a merger together with the management directors of RWE. This merger should bring the merged company RWE/VEW to the position of market leader in Germany for power and gas, and will create a company that is then the biggest private power company in Europe, and having the third biggest position after EdF and ENEL of Italy. This again will give us a good competitive basis in order to go much more European, and that comes back to your original question. With this position we think that more of our services will be outside Germany. The challenges we see right now are, first, to protect our existing markets, and secondly, to attack other areas which can be attacked under the existing laws. You know that there are different regimes throughout Europe, so it will take some time before we can really go everywhere in Europe. The same applies to those countries which are on the brink of entering the European market, like Poland, the Czech Republic, as well as Hungary. Right now we are already participating in more than two-thirds of the Hungarian gas supply business. However, we want to increase our participation in other Central European countries as well, as soon as the privatisation and other legal requirements are ready in these countries to allow this.