Chinese
companies bought up European ports — and now Brussels is starting to worry
Chinese
companies own stakes in about 30 European ports, and that’s raising security
concerns.
May 9, 2025
4:19 am CET
By Martina
Sapio
Europe is
getting twitchy about who owns its ports, with mounting anxiety driven by the
outsized footprint of Chinese firms across the bloc’s maritime gateways.
Transport
Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas on Thursday told industry leaders that
Europe’s ports must “reconsider security … and examine foreign presence more
carefully.” It was one of the clearest signals yet from Brussels that what once
was seen as a benign investment is now starting to look like a security
liability.
The
Commission’s recent defense white paper echoed that concern by floating the
idea of stricter controls on foreign ownership of “critical transport
infrastructure.”
That unease
is mirrored in a draft paper from the Socialists and Democrats in the European
Parliament, seen by POLITICO, which calls for tougher rules in the upcoming
overhaul of the EU’s foreign investment screening regulation.
Neither
Tzitzikostas nor the S&D mentioned China by name, but the subtext wasn’t
exactly subtle. Simon Van Hoeymissen, a researcher at Belgium's Royal Higher
Institute for Defense, said the language likely nods to Beijing’s expanding
hold over key European ports — from Antwerp-Bruges and Rotterdam to Piraeus in
Greece.
Chinese
giants COSCO and China Merchants, as well as Hong Kong-based Hutchison now hold
stakes in more than 30 terminals across the EU.
“The reality is clear,” said Ana Miguel Pedro, a Portuguese
MEP with the center-right European People's Party. A member of the Parliament’s
Seas, Rivers, Islands & Coastal Areas Intergroup, she warned that “foreign
state-driven actors like Beijing are operating with a level of coordination and
intent that far exceeds the fragmented response of individual countries.”
Pedro argued
COSCO isn’t behaving like a typical market actor but is taking orders from the
Chinese Communist Party. “Its growing presence in ports is not just an economic
concern,” she said. “It’s a strategic vulnerability.”
The EU is
starting to see it that way, too.
"Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine and China’s unofficial support for Russia have only
heightened concerns about the security of the EU’s ports," says a recent
report from the Warsaw-based Centre for Eastern Studies think tank.
One example
of the kind of strategic entanglement the EU is now confronting is playing out
in Poland, at the Gdynia Container Terminal, where Hutchison has held a stake
for over 20 years.
That
situation could change. Under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, who
wants Chinese-linked companies out of the Panama Canal, Hutchison is
negotiating a $23 billion sale of port properties worldwide, including 14 in
Europe, to a consortium led by BlackRock and including Mediterranean Shipping
Company. However, that deal hit a wall in March after Beijing intervened.
What makes
Gdynia especially revealing isn’t just the trade it handles — it’s what sits
next door: a naval base, a shipyard, and the headquarters of Poland’s elite
naval special forces, meaning that whoever runs the terminal holds a front-row
seat to European and NATO military logistics and defense operations.
Recognizing
the strategic significance, the Polish government has listed the terminal as
critical infrastructure, meaning the operator has to work closely with the
government on security.
This
high-stakes backdrop sharpens the edge of Pedro’s warning — and underscores why
the EU is now reassessing foreign involvement in its ports with renewed
urgency.
“If a foreign adversary exploits a
vulnerability in one European port, it jeopardizes all of us,” she said. “In
today’s world, we cannot afford strategic blindness while others act with full
visibility and intent.”
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