Federal government reacts to criticism of Hamburg port plans

Germany’s trading partners see it critically that the port of Hamburg wants to sell shares in a terminal to China. Chancellor Scholz is still hesitant to stop the project.

The federal government has admitted that the planned investment by the Chinese state-owned company Cosco in a subsidiary of the Hamburg port operator HHLA is met with a lack of understanding among German allies such as the USA, France and the Netherlands. The criticism leveled at the plans by Cosco and HHLA “should not simply be brushed aside,” said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit on Monday in Berlin. The project will be examined accordingly. However, two dozen other European ports are wholly or partly owned by Chinese investors, such as Rotterdam in the Netherlands or Piraeus in Greece. In Hamburg, on the other hand, it’s just a minority stake in one of several terminals.

The federal cabinet has to decide this week whether it will wave the deal through or prohibit it. All the federal ministries involved have spoken out against the deal – only Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) can obviously imagine approval given the decades of close cooperation between the HHLA subsidiary CTT and its most important customer Cosco. Scholz’s past as Hamburg mayor may also play a role.

The Chancellor will be backed by Schleswig-Holstein’s Prime Minister Daniel Günther (CDU). It is important to him “that the Port of Hamburg is economically successful, that investments are made there,” he said on ARD. Against this background, Cosco’s minority stake in CTT is “understandable” and “very defensive”. The economist Rolf Langhammer from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy pointed out that the port is already “a little bit with its back against the wall” in view of its siltation problems. The offer from the Chinese is also a threat. “According to the motto: If you don’t do it, there will be negative consequences.”

As a possible compromise, Cosco is apparently only taking a 24.9 percent stake in the Tollerort terminal instead of 35. As a minority shareholder, the Group could then formally no longer exert any influence on the content of the CTT management. The government’s review of the project could also become obsolete – at least if Tollerort is not classified as part of Germany’s critical infrastructure.

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