Can another state or a foreign state-owned company participate in airports, ports or other important facilities? While there are still heated debates in Hamburg and Berlin, Bavaria is drawing a clear red line as a precaution.
Munich (dpa / lby) – As a result of the dispute over a Chinese entry at a terminal in the port of Hamburg, Bavaria’s state government categorically excludes comparable processes in the Free State. “The Bavarian state government has no understanding for this. We consider the decision to be wrong and rule out such decisions for Bavaria or for Bavarian infrastructure,” said Head of the State Chancellery Florian Herrmann (CSU) on Tuesday after a cabinet meeting in Munich. Although Bavaria is in favor of global trade, the sale of infrastructure is not a sensible element of cooperation or trade.
In a resolution, the cabinet therefore clearly spoke out against any participation by foreign states or companies controlled by foreign states in infrastructure facilities in Bavaria. From a transport, economic and security policy point of view, these “should not fall into the hands of non-EU investors, i.e. investors outside the European Union”.
Herrmann named airports, the six inland ports in Bavaria, the Munich Exhibition Center and the Nuremberg Exhibition Center as examples. These are all “very central factors in the Bavarian economy”. Even with the digital infrastructure of the authorities and organizations with security tasks (BUS), “these should also remain within the network sovereignty of the Free State’s own sovereignty”.
The infrastructures are the basic requirement for the functioning of the state and society and are also “lifelines of the economy,” said Herrmann. It is the task of the state, more precisely one of the core tasks of the state, to ensure and maintain this.
In September 2021, the Hamburg port logistics company HHLA and the Chinese terminal operator Cosco Shipping Ports Limited agreed on a 35 percent Chinese stake in the HHLA terminal in Tollerort (CTT) in the Hanseatic city. The Cosco Group also operates the world’s fourth largest shipping company and, in return for the stake, wants to make the CTT a preferred transhipment point in Europe.
Cosco’s entry is also controversial within the federal government. Now there is a compromise. According to this, Cosco should only be allowed to participate with a smaller share – with 24.9 instead of 35 percent. As a minority shareholder, the group would then not be able to exert any formal influence on the management.
