Shipping has been unfairly targeted, Melina Travlos, the president of the Union of Greek Shipowners (EEE), said on Thursday, noting that “the sector has now been instrumentalized in crises that are geopolitical and very political.”
In a discussion with Kathimerini Executive Editor Alexis Papachelas, during a conference on energy transition co-organized by the Financial Times and Kathimerini, the head of the Greek shippers analyzed the complex challenges global shipping is facing in an environment of intense geopolitical turmoil.
She made some strong comments on the stance of the European Union: “Why isn’t Europe dealing with shipping? Because shipping simply has no votes.”
Despite the fact that Greek shipping represents 61% of the EU fleet and 35% of the global fleet, Europe was slow to realize its dependence on the sector, maintaining a sometimes “punitive” attitude for years.
It took the crisis of the war in Ukraine for the European leadership to understand that shipping is its most powerful geopolitical tool, especially at a time when the continent’s shipbuilding industry is essentially “finished.”
