faq
More than 60 percent of German foreign trade takes place by sea. The traffic light government wants to better protect the ports. What exactly are included in the 139 measures of the National Port Strategy? And who pays for that?
Germany’s ports should be strengthened. They are an important hub in global trade and also an essential component of the energy transition. An important step towards this should be one National port strategy which has now been decided by the Federal Cabinet. The German ports should be “made fit for the future,” explained Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP).
In recent years, for example, the locations have lost market share in international competition when it comes to container handling, according to the strategy paper. But there is also a need for action to secure the role of the ports in the energy transition. To do this, however, the infrastructure must be expanded – and that costs a lot of money. However, there is a dispute about this between the federal government and the coastal states.
Why are the ports so important?
The strategy states that the German sea and inland ports have a very high economic and strategic importance as “hubs of the maritime and continental supply chains”. Germany handles around 60 percent of its imports and exports by sea. Last year, according to the Federal Statistical Office, this amounted to around 267.8 million tonnes of goods – including energy, food, clothing, technology and medicine.
Ports play an important role not only for the handling of goods, but also as hubs for the energy transition – i.e. the gradual departure from fossil fuels such as gas and coal. Cuxhaven is a special location: According to the Federal Wind Energy Association, 80 percent of the rotor blades required for wind turbines arrive via the port. However, the available port capacities there are at capacity.
The strategy also assigns important future tasks to the ports: in the areas of industrial transformation, supply and production security, the new security architecture within NATO and also in the fight against drug and weapons smuggling.
What are the most important German ports?
“With 20 seaports on the North and Baltic Seas and around 100 public inland ports, Germany has an efficient freight transport network and a strong port economy,” says the strategy.
By far the largest and most important port in the country is located in Hamburg. According to the Federal Statistical Office, 99.6 million tons of goods were handled there last year, as many goods as in all other relevant seaports in Germany combined. After that followed Bremerhaven with 39.2 million tons, Wilhelmshaven in Lower Saxony with 29.8 million tons and Rostock in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania with 23.9 million tons.
The German coastal ports in particular are in tough competition with other European ports such as Rotterdam or Antwerp.
How does the government want to strengthen the ports?
The National Port Strategy includes a total of 139 measures. The German ports should be nationally and internationally competitive and operate free of critical dependencies, as the paper states. It is about competitive conditions, increased cooperation between ports, the research and development of innovative port technologies and a “consistent” port and infrastructure policy.
In addition, planning and approval procedures should be accelerated for the expansion of the ports. According to the strategy, the performance of the seaward access to the German seaports and their hinterland connections is a key factor for the success of the ports. The inland ports would also be affected by “insufficient resilience and stability” of the transport routes. The reliability of the transport infrastructure must therefore be significantly improved.
Another goal of the strategy is to make the ports climate-neutral by 2045. This includes planned infrastructural renovations and, last but not least, the digital transformation of the locations.
How should the ports become safer?
The strategy includes several steps to make German ports safer. For this purpose, some of them should be classified as critical infrastructures. When it comes to investments and investments from third countries, not only national security interests will have to be examined in the future, but there should also be close European coordination in order to secure the European port infrastructure. In the past, for example, there was a heated dispute over the Chinese state shipping company Cosco’s participation in a container terminal in the port of Hamburg.
Ports should also be “robust” against physical and cyber attacks and resistant to criminal influence, as the strategy states. Organized crime at German ports is currently increasing, especially in international drug trafficking.
Who is responsible for the ports?
Although most of Germany’s foreign trade passes through the seaports of the North and Baltic Seas as well as Hamburg, the basic responsibility for the very expensive infrastructure lies solely with the states.
However, according to the Basic Law, the federal government is responsible for the construction and maintenance of the federal transport routes and also finances them. According to the Ministry of Transport, the federal government has spent an average of around 500 million euros annually over the past ten years just for the fairway adjustments on the Elbe and Weser, the deepening of the Outer Ems, the measures on the Kiel Canal and the expansion of the seaward access routes to Rostock and Wismar issued.
Who pays for all of this?
Equipping the ports for the future and, above all, preparing them for climate neutrality is extremely expensive. The port industry and the coastal states of Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, Bremen and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania have therefore long been calling on the federal government to significantly increase federal funding to finance seaports. The infrastructure alone costs 400 million euros per year due to increased costs. So far, the federal government has only paid 38 million euros per year for all ports combined.
There are no concrete financial plans in the port strategy. The Central Association of German Seaport Companies (ZDS) and the Federal Association of Public Inland Ports (BÖB) were disappointed by this and demanded reliable promises. Both associations could not see how “the ambitious and important goals of the strategy can be achieved without the appropriate financial backing” and called for funding programs and improvements – also with a view to the 2025 budget.