LUPENI, Romania (AFP) - The rattling lift stops with a screech as a dozen men appear out of the semi-darkness. "If I found another job, I would leave tomorrow," says Viorel, one of 2,500 miners in Lupeni in southern Romania.

"Nothing has changed here in 100 years," says the 38-year-old miner, who has spent half his life digging for coal 300 metres (985 feet) under the earth in this mine dating back to 1892. Coal mining "has no future" anymore, he adds.

In a storage shed holding a few rusty wagons beneath a broken roof, only a few empty cans of beer shining in the mud seem to contradict his words.

"Since 1990, this mine has received no investment," its director Cristian Purcaru said.

Lupeni in the Jiu valley, once the pride and joy of the Communist regime with an annual output of 28 million tons of coal, now barely produces 3 million tons per year.

But Purcaru admitted it could have been worse: "God helped us, because the drought of the last few years sparked interest in coal mining again."

The Jiu valley, Romania's main mining region, was the hardest hit by a programme launched in 1997 with World Bank funds and aimed at closing unprofitable mines.

Since then, some 100 mines have been shut around the country, including about 40 in the Jiu valley alone, where only about a dozen are still in operation.

The valley's population has fallen from 300,000 inhabitants in 1990 to 150,000 today, while the number of miners has dropped from 46,000 to 11,800 in the past 17 years.

Restructuring the mining sector has proven difficult for Bucharest given the lack of foreign investment and the authorities' unwillingness to take drastic measures that could have made it profitable out of fear of industrial action.

Economy Minister Varujan Vosganian said he did not want to give miners false hopes but added that "coal mining must continue, otherwise Romania will have to shut its thermal power plants" or import coal from elsewhere, which would be more expensive.

Coal currently satisfies a third of the country's energy needs, with hydroelectric, hydrocarbon and nuclear energy making up the rest. A decision will be made before May on whether to continue coal mining in Romania, Vosganian said.

But Bucharest must also find a way to reduce state aid to this sector that amounted to some 5 billion euros (6.58 billion dollars) between 1990 and 2007 but was used almost entirely to pay salaries rather than to invest in technology.

State aid will be banned completely starting in 2011 according to the European Union's instructions.

"The government's promises aren't worth anything," said Marcel, 37.

"We work with the same picks they had 50 years ago, the lamps are so old they hardly give out any light and our work clothes are in a pitiful state," he added.

"We don't even dare complain, because the bosses told us very clearly: those who aren't happy can go," said another miner, who asked not to be named.

Strikes and "punitive marches" on Bucharest like the ones that made successive governments tremble in the 1990s and spread fear among the capital's residents, are now "out of the question," he said.

"Nobody has the courage to organise a protest movement here," Viorel added.

Miners earn 350 euros per month at Lupeni, higher than the national average but still "not enough" given the extreme working conditions.

A court decision on Tuesday to keep behind bars the miners' historic leader Miron Cozma, who is serving an 18-year sentence for organising protests in Bucharest, provoked mixed reaction among his former colleagues.

"Cozma certainly made mistakes, but without him we would never have got the rights we have today," Viorel said, before asking worriedly: "are miners still regarded as brutes in Bucharest?"