During his inaugural visit to Athens, Chancellor Scholz will answer questions about the controversial exchange of rings. Because Greece wants to station its new German “Marder” armored personnel carriers on the border with Turkey. He also commented on the Chinese entry into a Hamburg port terminal.
Greece wants to station the six “Marder” infantry fighting vehicles just delivered by Germany on the border with Turkey. After a meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Athens, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced that the armored personnel carriers would be taken to the Evros border river in the north-east of the country. “Our forces assume that that is where they will be most useful,” Mitsotakis said.
Scholz emphasized that the NATO partner is free to station the armored personnel carriers wherever they want. “We delivered the ‘Marder’ to Greece and there is no daily report where they are. We don’t ask.” Germany works with Greece in many fields. Questioning the handling of delivered weapons would be a “very strange approach”.
A few days ago, Germany delivered the first six of a total of “Marders” to Greece as part of a ring exchange for supporting Ukraine with tanks. The government in Athens undertook to send 40 Soviet-designed BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles to the war zone, which it had once received from East German stocks.
The six tanks are to be presented at a parade in Thessaloniki on Friday – one of the two Greek national holidays. They are then expected to be transported to the border area. At the border with Turkey, Athens had massively strengthened border protection in recent years. The aim is also to prevent migrants from entering the EU.
In view of the escalating tensions between Greece and Turkey, Scholz called on both sides to resolve all outstanding issues “in accordance with international law”. It cannot be “that NATO partners question each other’s sovereignty,” said Scholz. Good relations between Turkey and Greece are not only important for both countries, but for all of Europe.
In an interview published ahead of his meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Scholz dismissed Turkish claims to the sovereignty of Greek islands. In the newspaper “Ta Nea” he also criticized “more or less encrypted military threats” against Athens. The Chancellor demanded that the economic potential of the eastern Mediterranean must be used for the benefit of all countries. Germany could also contribute to this “in a way that both sides consider useful”.
Scholz also defended the cabinet decision on the partial takeover of a terminal at the port of Hamburg by the Chinese state-owned company Cosco. A “good solution” had been found, said Scholz in Athens. The fact that Cosco is now not allowed to take over 35 percent of the terminal as originally planned is “correct, because it is indeed a legitimate concern to say that there must be no false influence on infrastructure”.
It’s just about “a terminal, an operating company in a large port,” emphasized Scholz. Especially with a minority stake of 24.9 percent, the danger of “wrong influence” on important infrastructure is “in no way given”. It’s also not about selling off “land and soil”. Hamburg port facilities are state property and “will always remain so and will never be privatized”.
