Status: 10/25/2022 3:00 p.m
Six years ago, Cosco became the majority owner of the port of Piraeus. Although there is criticism of the working conditions, the fact that China controls critical infrastructure hardly bothers anyone in Greece anymore.
It’s been six years since the China Ocean Shipping Company, or Cosco for short, took over 51 percent of the Greek port of Piraeus. Back then, in 2016, Greece was still deep in the financial crisis and was forced to privatize important infrastructure.
“Cosco’s investments in the port of Piraeus are an example of how a major Chinese company was bold enough to invest in an important infrastructure project at a time when Greece was considered uninvestable,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in the year 2019
But it would be wrong to believe that China only became interested in Greece as a result of the financial crisis, says economist Jens Bastian, who has lived and worked in Athens for almost 25 years. “Cosco took the first step into the port of Piraeus in 2009. At that time, it leased a container terminal in the port for more than 30 years. It was a first indication that China was interested in port infrastructure in Greece.”
China’s state-owned company Cosco began investing in Piraeus when nobody wanted the port.
Image: picture alliance / NurPhoto
Criticism of Cosco’s way of working
At that time, China did not have much competition for Piraeus: the port was poorly developed and was not considered particularly customer-friendly. In the meantime, Cosco has increased its stake to 67 percent and a lot has changed.
“Today this is a highly modern, developed port. It is the seventh largest in Europe,” says economist Bastian. “It is now the largest in the eastern Mediterranean and it is a port that has not only secured jobs but also created new ones.”
But there are also downsides: A year ago, a port worker had a fatal accident at a container pier. Employees and trade unions had already repeatedly complained about the sometimes precarious working conditions. In addition, local authorities and environmental organizations accuse Cosco of not complying with regulations and damaging the marine environment.
Piraeus – a success story?
On the other hand, there are hardly any debates about the growing Chinese influence on critical infrastructure, as is currently the case in Germany. While each nation state in Europe initially keeps its own interests in mind, China primarily pursues long-term global strategies. The Mediterranean region is a good example of this, Bastian notes. One can learn there how Cosco and other Chinese companies “gradually built up and bought together a portfolio of ports”: “Cosco is also involved in Egypt and Turkey, other Chinese companies in Israel and Italy.”
Such a network could even soon be created within Germany, because Cosco’s entry into the port of Hamburg would not be the first investment from the Far East within the Federal Republic: The company China Logistics has already bought into the ports of Wilhelmshaven and Duisburg.
But even more than the growing dependence on China, economist Bastian is concerned about the one-sidedness of these deals: “Is there a German, a Greek, a Belgian company that is a shareholder in a Chinese port? No, zero,” he says. “That means we have a one-sided approach that I really think is crass.”
In Greece, such concerns are irrelevant. The takeover of the port of Piraeus is primarily considered a success story there: last year, the operators generated the highest turnover in the history of the port.