The German government has reached an agreement on the controversial Hamburg port deal that allows for a Chinese state company to buy a stake in one of the terminals, local media reported Tuesday.
It comes just days after an investigation by outlets NDR and WDR revealed that German leader Olaf Scholz’s chancellery tried to push the deal through despite concerns from multiple ministries.
The issue is politically sensitive, with politicians from the Green party and liberal FDP having expressed concerns about undue Chinese influence over critical infrastructure — particularly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine laid bare Europe’s energy dependency on autocratic third countries.
Now, the government ministries have reached a deal: If approved, it would allow Chinese company Cosco to buy only 24.9 percent instead of 35 percent of the shipping company that runs the terminal, Hamburger Hafen und Logistik (HHLA), the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported Monday evening. As a minority shareholder, this would prevent Cosco from having a formal say over strategy. HHLA could not immediately be reached for comment.
But the compromise doesn’t alleviate everyone’s concerns.
Svenja Hahn, a member of the European Parliament’s Renew Europe group and the German Free Democrats, said the reported compromise showed German naivety in its dealings with China.
“Viewed as a whole, it remains a serious strategic mistake to place parts of critical infrastructure in Chinese hands. After all, China has successively bought into European ports, but excludes foreign ownership of ports in its own country,” she said. “This shows that cooperation with China is not a partnership of equals.”
Cosco already owns stakes in Europe’s two largest ports at Rotterdam and Antwerp, while it also controls the port of Piraeus in Athens and is behind a scheme to expand an inland rail terminal at Duisburg where the Ruhr and the Rhine rivers meet and which is a major hub for overland freight arriving from China.
