Lawmakers from two of Germany’s governing parties yesterday slammed plans for Chinese shipping company Cosco to take a major stake in the operator of the country’s biggest container terminal, at Hamburg port, warning that they pose a national security risk.
Public broadcaster NDR reported that Chancellor Olaf Scholz has asked officials to find a compromise that would allow the investment to happen, after several ministries initially rejected it on the grounds that Cosco, already the port’s biggest customer, could get too much leverage.
Neither the ministries nor Scholz’s office immediately responded to requests for comment. But lawmakers from the Green party and the Free Democrats, which formed a coalition last year with Scholz’ Social Democrats, criticized the plan.
“Our critical infrastructure must not become a plaything for the geopolitical interests of others,” Green party lawmaker Marcel Emmerich said. Citing a past government decision by one of Scholz’s fellow Social Democrats to let Russia buy German natural gas storage facilities, he accused the chancellor of wanting to “flog off parts of the port of Hamburg to China, whatever it takes.”
