Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis speaks with the former president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, at Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum in Singapore. [AMNA]
The US interest in Greece as a strategic partner in delivering US-produced energy to Ukraine and as the location of several ports is combined with the Trump administration’s strong desire to dislodge China from the area, which means its ownership, through state-owned Cosco, of the country’s biggest port, Piraeus.
Thus Greece finds itself between the US, its preferred strategic partner, and China, which invested in Piraeus at a time no other powers were even considering it.
Athens officials believe that it can manage its position within that superpower game of influence.
And, along with the other European Union members, Greece is closely following developments in Ukraine, which is facing pressing US demands to accept a humiliating peace that could embolden Russia and whose relations with Russia are at an all-time low.
The alignment with the US is not just out of basic ideological compatibility but a recognition of the fact that the Americans play a decisive role in the complicated security architecture in the Eastern Mediterranean and that it is preferable to be on the good side of their volatile but determined leadership.
Hence the alacrity with which the government passed a bill allowing ONEX Elefsis Shipyards, largely funded by the US International Development Finance Corporation, to expand the port and its commercial, logistics and transport activities to the point where it can challenge Piraeus’ port supremacy.
The government says that the commitment to Piraeus port and the partnership with Cosco is long-term and will not waver.