PM’s office intervenes to defuse tension over Piraeus

In the next few days – if not on Tuesday – Cosco is expected to submit to the Port Planning and Development Commission a memorandum with its remarks on the watchdog’s original opinion.

That opinion has generated problems for a series of investments, totaling 612 million euros, which Cosco-owned Piraeus Port Authority (OLP) intends to implement. That is because some of the investments, such as the new warehouses, the shipbuilding unit for mega yachts, the shopping center at the new passenger terminal and the fourth five-star hotel planned in the Porto Leone area, were rejected by the regulator. The opinion was forwarded to the Central Archaeological Council. The latter’s opposition to the investment spurred the intervention of the Chinese Embassy as well as the Prime Minister’s Office on the issue to defuse the situation.

Sources say that the initiative from the PM’s Office included the expected submission of the Cosco memorandum with the remarks to the port watchdog in a bid to heal the wounds opened last week and came three weeks before Alexis Tsipras’ trip to Beijing. It also came just days before the summit of the 16+1 Initiative between China and Central and Eastern European countries that Greece has just joined.