The data comes from a report produced by Clarkson’s Shipping, one of the top ship-brokering firms worldwide, and the news made the lead story of the financial section of Le Monde. There is however another piece of news related to the Greek shipowners which was ignored by Ta Nea, and was probably unknown to Le Monde’s financial news editors.
It has to do with a packet of commitments and reforms submitted to parliament by the Minister of Shipping, Miltiadis Varvitsiotis. According to these, the government effectively will waive shipowners debts worth 110 million euros to the social security fund of ship-workers. At the same time the transport shipowners will be able to use whatever ship they like - regardless of size - for the transport needs of islands in the winter. All of this for a sector which - as is widely known - benefits from a complete tax immunity. The Shipping Minister of course made clear that these are ‘suggestions’ and ‘recommendations’ of the troika.
Indicative of the ‘spirit of cooperation’ which characterizes the relationship between the shipowners and the government were the comments made by Mr Varvitsiotis when he presented the specific packet of measures on 7/5/2013:
Regarding debts toward the Ship-workers Retirement Fund (NAT): “There are 110 million euros owed to the fund,” but, he said, “we want the companies to continue to operate in order that they pay their contributions to the fund and for that reason we have made numerous adjustments in order to cover them,” given that “it is not in anyone’s interest for these companies to go bankrupt because ultimately NAT would not be able to collect.” (Obviously the same does not apply to citizens with small debts to the state.)
Regarding the collective contracts of ship-workers: “Collective contracts pertain to the members that sign on to them. The measures regarding business contracts override the collective contracts.” Indeed he made clear that, “this provision is one of the international obligations taken on by the country in the framework of the MEFP, the contracts which we have established with the IMF following their specific recommendations and after very extensive consultations.”
Regarding transportation links: “If it deems it expedient, (with the new legislative measure) a company may transfer additional days of immobility to a larger, more costly ship for the winter period and to serve the same transportation links with a smaller one. This is being done for no reason other than to improve the competitiveness of the specific sector.” He added that this was “one of the OECD recommendations which should have already been included in previous legislation, but we had not finalized the exact wording with the troika.”
Note: Greek controlled shipping companies spent 9.4 billion euros in 2013 for the construction of 275 new ships and not one of these orders went to a Greek shipyard.
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