Port of Piraeus — BrandWiki

Port of Piraeus

Overview

Port of Piraeus

pushpin map	Greece
country	Greece
location	Piraeus
coordinates	37.94194°N, 23.63611°W
locode	GRPIR‡R1R‡
operated	Piraeus Port Authority (COSCO (67%)), (athex: PPA)
owner	COSCO (67%) HRADF (7.14%)‡R2R‡ Non-institutional investors (25.86%)
type	Natural/artificial
size	3900 ha

The Port of Piraeus is the chief sea port of Athens, located on the Saronic Gulf on the western coasts of the Aegean Sea, the largest port in Greece and one of the largest in Europe.[6]

The Chinese state-owned COSCO Shipping operates the port.

History

The Port of Piraeus served as the port of Athens since ancient times.[7][8]

Early Antiquity

Until the 3rd millennium BC, Piraeus was a rocky island connected to the mainland by a low-lying stretch of land that was flooded with sea water most of the year.

Under COSCO ownership

In October 2009 Greece leased docks 2 and 3 from PPA to the China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company (in short: COSCO) for a 35-year-period. For its presence at the port COSCO is paying 100 million euros every year.[10] Terminal 1 is operated by PPA S.A. and has a capacity of nearly 1 million TEUs. Terminal 2's capacity is 3 million TEUs and is run by Piraeus Container Terminal PCT S.A., a subsidiary of COSCO. In 2013, PCT finished the construction of Terminal 3 with a capacity of roughly 2.7 million TEU. The total port capacity is 6.7 m TEUs. COSCO's involvement was accompanied by protest. According to trade unionists of PPA, the arrival of COSCO led to reductions in salary and social benefits, exclusion of union members and increased pressures on time and performance at the expense of worker safety.[19] According to an interview in 2012 with Harilaos N. Psaraftis, a professor of maritime transport in Athens, in some cases the salaries of workers were $181,000 a year with overtime before the 20% general pay-cuts imposed on public employees. Due to union safety rules a team of nine people was required to work a gantry crane. COSCO pays around $23,300 and only requires four people at a crane.[19]

Economic performance of container handling has greatly improved since 2009. Before COSCO took over, the port's container handling record was at 1.5 million TEUs. These figures rose to 3.692 million containers in 2017.[20] As a result, revenue and profits soared. In 2017 the Athens stock exchange listed company (OLP) almost doubled its pre-tax profits from 11 to 21.2 million euros.[21]

The Piraeus Port Authority S.A. (PPA), which operates the country’s largest port, announced that total revenue reached 230.9 million euros ($249.82 million), marking a five percent increase from 2023, according to a press statement. Pre-tax profits rose to 112.9 million euros, reflecting a 17.4 percent increase compared to 2023, while after-tax profits climbed to 87.4 million euros, up by 30.8 percent year-on-year.

Labour relations

In 2012, the Greek government passed a law reducing the pay of all government jobs by 35 to 40 percent.[22] At the time, Piraeus Port Authority (PPA) (the company legally allowed to operate the port) was considered a public company because it was majority held by the Greek State. Consequently, the port was subject to the wage reduction.

In 2014 the Greek government sought to sell equity of the port as part of an agreement with the EU to recover from debt. This was met with criticism and resistance by the port's local union as well as a significant part of the Greek population.[22] The Dockworker's union went on strike several times.[23][24][25] The push to sell the port stalled while the controlling federal political party changed, but that was short lived.[22] Negotiations between the Greek government and COSCO soon resumed while the resistance to foreign control of the port started to decline. The port is sometimes known as the gateway to Europe due to its location relative to Europe, Asia, and northern Africa. As such, the union wanted to keep the port under Greek control.[22] However, at that point the privatization efforts of the government were inevitable as Greece struggled to raise money to finance debt.

The Greek government went ahead with the decision to sell 51 percent of the PPA to COSCO in 2016, and hand over another 16 percent by 2021. Chinese state news agencies report that the negotiation was easy for COSCO because it had already invested more than 300 million Euros into upgrading the container terminals since 2009, and promised to keep investing. COSCO's container terminals had set records for the port at this time. A dockworker, Constantinos Tsourakis, said at the time "This is not a concession, it’s a giveaway of property belonging to the Greek people. Why should China be masters of the game at Piraeus and not the Greek state?"

COSCO and the union reached an agreement early on that established work environment concerns, including safety, working hours, and a gantry crane staffing dispute.[22] The 35/40 percent government mandated pay reduction ceased to apply as soon as COSCO owned 51 percent, because PPA was no longer a public company. One of the union's expectations of the investment was that COSCO would up the wages to match what they were before the reduction. However, the wages have been stagnant (as of 2017) since the 2012 reductions.[22] This hasn't sat well with the union, which is currently in negotiations regarding pay. COSCO maintains that they did not reduce the pay of any workers. The union Gen. Secretary, Giorgios Gogos, agrees with that assessment, but says the expectation of COSCO to remove the 35/40 percent reduction remains a problem. He also points out that the 51 percent stake (which will increase to 67 percent in 2021) means that the 100 million dollars that the COSCO subsidiary pays each year to the PPA for use of dock 2 and 3 ends up back in COSCO's hands, not those of the Greek government or people, as originally intended.[22]

The Dockworker's Union represents 350 workers in Piraeus and is a member of the General Confederation of Greek Workers (Greek) and a founding member of the International Dockworkers Council (International).[26]

Environment

Piraeus Port Authority's (PPA) 2013 environmental flyer calls itself the "Green Port of the Mediterranean Sea".[44] The port is a member of EcoPorts.[45] It is also ISO 14001 Certified by Lloyd's Register and Bureau Veritas.[45] PPA states on its website that it has disposal services for all types of ship-generated waste.[46] The port conducts water quality tests and works with nearby schools.[47]

The port has partnered with the University of Piraeus and Cardiff University to implement a sea water quality monitoring program. Bi-annually, the water and sediment throughout the whole port area is sampled and tested.[47] Some parameters measured include pH, Turbidity, Salinity, Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), E-Coli, Total Coliforms, TDS, and Heavy Metals.[44]

For air quality monitoring, the port partnered with the National Technical University of Athens School of Chemical Engineers. An air quality monitoring station was installed to take measurements of BTEX, CO, NOx, Sulfur dioxide, Ozone, and PM2.5 and PM10, 24 hours a day. PPA has also collaborated with the Agricultural University of Athens to enhance the greenery around the port for aesthetic purposes, as well as to remove pollutants from the air.[47] The purposes of the monitoring initiatives so far has just been for data collection.

In 2004 for the Athens Olympic Games, a permanent sewage network was built for the cruise ships that were docked in Piraeus as floating hotels.[46] The sewage travels to the Wastewater Treatment Plant of Athens.[46] This development allows all cruise ships to be able to discharge sewage at the port.

PPA is a member of EcoPorts. As part of EcoPorts, the port has been continuously Port Environmental Review System (PERS) certified since 2004.[48] PERS is a standard for port environmental management. One of the requirements of EcoPorts is an environmental management system.[49] The port has an oil and Hazardous and Noxious Substances (HNS) contingency plan.[50] In 2016, PPA was independently tested to make sure pollution levels were within legal limits, which they were.

The port is currently looking into LNG as a bunker fuel, as well as cold ironing for the cruise terminals.[51] It is also conducting a footprint assessment. A green roof was installed on the top of one of the new container terminal buildings.[47]

China–Europe Land–Sea Express Line

The China-Europe Land-Sea Express Line is a transportation and logistics corridor that forms part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The route connects China to Europe via maritime and overland transport, with Piraeus Port serving as its primary European hub. The corridor leverages Piraeus's strategic position as the first European port after the Suez Canal and closest deep-water port to the Far East, providing Chinese goods with faster access to European markets through the Mediterranean.[52]

Chinese state-owned enterprise COSCO acquired control of Piraeus Port through a concession agreement beginning in 2008, with majority ownership obtained in 2016. Since COSCO's involvement, container throughput increased from 880,000 TEUs in 2010 to over 5 million TEUs by 2023, making Piraeus the largest container terminal in the Mediterranean and among the top five in Europe.[53]

Multimodal channels

The China-Europe Land-Sea Express Line links Piraeus to Central and Eastern Europe through multimodal channels, combining maritime shipping, rail transport, and overland trucking. The corridor integrates with European transport networks including the Orient-East Med Corridor, and its rail component is anchored by the Budapest–Belgrade railway, set to be completed in 2026, which connects with Piraeus via the Balkan rail system. This line allows containers unloaded in Piraeus to be transported northward through North Macedonia and Serbia to Hungary and further into European markets.[53]

The express line has shortened transport time to destinations in Central Europe by up to 10 days compared to traditional maritime routes via northern European ports. In 2022, the route handled 181,000 TEUs, an 18.4% annual increase, highlighting its role as a complementary logistics channel to the China–Europe Railway Express.[53] The development of multiple transport channels is viewed by both China and Greece as a way to increase resilience against disruptions, whether from congestion or geopolitical instability such as the 2024 Red Sea crisis, which temporarily diverted traffic away from Piraeus.[53]