HAMBURG (dpa-AFX) - The Budget Committee of the Hamburg Parliament has surprisingly postponed its decision on the controversial entry of the world's largest shipping company MSC into the port logistics company HHLA. The committee actually wanted to wave through the red-green Senate's deal on Tuesday evening with the majority vote of the governing coalition. However, this came to nothing because the Left Party thwarted the plan with a motion for a public hearing. According to the rules of procedure of the Hamburg Parliament, a public hearing must take place if at least 20 percent of the committee members so wish. The Budget Committee has 23 members, six of whom are from the opposition CDU, Left Party and AfD.

The date agreed for the hearing is June 20 (2 p.m.). This will be followed by a Senate inquiry and the non-public part of the Budget Committee meeting. The hearing could cause the red-green coalition's plan to finally approve the deal in the last parliamentary session before the summer break on July 10 to falter. The Committee for Public Enterprises and the Economic Committee had already waved through the red-green Senate's plan.

"We need to discuss this unfortunate deal in greater depth," said Norbert Hackbusch, the Left Party's ports expert, explaining the motion. If only because the contract had been amended again at the beginning of last week. "It's about the privileged handling of MSC at Burchardkai - and that conflicts with the freedom from discrimination emphasized in the printed matter," said Hackbusch. However, this was contradicted by Senator for Economic Affairs Melanie Leonhard (SPD), who once again assured that the terminal would operate without discrimination.

The CDU opposition's budget expert, Thilo Kleibauer, was also skeptical about the planned deal. There are still many unanswered questions, he said. Similar comments were made by representatives of the AfD and the FDP. The SPD spokesperson for public companies, Markus Schreiber, on the other hand, called the deal a clever idea and a major boost for the Port of Hamburg. Dominik Lorenzen, head of the Green Party parliamentary group, was open to a hearing. At the same time, he emphasized that his group considers the opportunities of the deal to be greater than the risks and will therefore approve it.

Before the Budget Committee meeting began, port workers and the Verdi trade union protested once again against the planned acquisition of the Geneva-based Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) by Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) in front of City Hall. They presented the Chairman of the Budget Committee, Mathias Petersen (SPD), with a letter to this effect and announced further demonstrations. In the letter, they countered statements made by MSC Germany's CEO Nils Kahn about the deal with, among other things: "We don't believe a word you say and appeal to the members of parliament not to be fooled either."

When handing over the open letter at the Rathausmarkt, Petersen said that as committee chairman he was obliged to remain neutral. But "everyone knows how I think". The SPD politician had previously announced in the "Bild" newspaper that he would vote against the deal. "The deal is bad for Hamburg. I don't want my children and grandchildren to accuse me of not fighting for our port," he said.

Verdi department head André Kretschmar expressed a similar view: "The deal is a bad deal for our city and for the people in the port." The Senate likes to point out that the City of Hamburg remains the majority shareholder, but at the same time it has granted MSC extensive veto rights. "That worries us greatly. We have to assume that MSC will turn out to be a wolf in sheep's clothing in five years' time at the latest, when the existing commitments to the employees end," said Kretschmar.

The Senate wants to bring MSC on board at HHLA in order to stabilize container handling. The city and the company, which belongs to the Italian shipping family Aponte, are to run HHLA as a joint venture in future, with the city holding a majority of 50.1 percent. To date, the city has owned around 70 percent of HHLA, which is listed on the stock exchange.

In return, the world's largest shipping company MSC wants to build its German headquarters in Hamburg, increase the cargo volume in the port from 2025 and, according to the press release, increase it to one million standard containers (TEU) per year by 2031. MSC and the city also want to increase HHLA's equity by 450 million euros. The port has recently suffered setbacks. Last year, the handling of seaborne cargo fell by 4.7 percent compared to 2022 to 114.3 million tons - the lowest figure since 2009./klm/DP/men