[ad_1]
©Reuters. Greece cancels the privatization of the strategic port of Alexandroupolis
Athens, November 10 (EFE). – Greece canceled this Thursday the bidding process for the sale of the port of Alexandroupoli in the northwest of the country, whose strategic importance has increased significantly after the Russian invasion in Ukraine, the Asset Development Fund of the Hellenic Republic announced in a statement. (TAIPED).
The Conservative Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, had already advanced since Monday in an interview with ANT1 private television that the Government had decided to cancel the privatization of the port since “in the present circumstances” it has a “great strategic, geopolitical importance and energy” and therefore “should remain under the jurisdiction of the Greek public”.
The port currently functions as a supply base for NATO forces throughout Eastern Europe and is also included in the Hellenic-American military agreement.
After Turkey closed the Bosphorus Strait – the only entrance to the Black Sea – to military ships following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Alexandroupolis has proven to be a reliable alternative for receiving and then transporting US and NATO troops and weapons. to the east of Europe.
The companies that aspired to take over the port were the American Quintana Infrastructure and Development and International Port Investments Alexandroupolis, a joint venture, which also included the American Black Summit Financial Group.
According to local media, it is possible that the Executive is planning to implement in Alexandroupolis a model similar to the one that works in Suda on the Greek island of Crete, where the Americans have a military base that is under the jurisdiction of the Hellenic Government, but maintain their own personnel, materials, offices, and ammunition.
The government has also decided to cancel the process of privatizing the port of Kavala, a few kilometers west of Alexandroupolis, which is also well connected to land transport infrastructure and near which is the only productive hydrocarbon field in the country, reports the daily Greek Kathimerini.
Likewise, in the port of Alexandroupolis, construction began in March of a floating liquefied natural gas storage plant that is expected to be ready by the end of next year and that can be connected to the Greece-Bulgaria Interconnector gas pipeline (IGB).
Since forming a government in 2019, Mitsotakis has strengthened Greece’s relations with the United States, approving in May the extension of the Greek-American military agreement, which added four more air and sea bases to the existing ones that this country can use in Greece and that foresees that after five years the same agreement will be extended for the first time indefinitely.
[ad_2]