Schifffahrtsförderung am falschen Ende?

摘要

Die andauernde Krise in der Schifffahrt geht in ihr fünftes Jahr und bedroht immer mehr Einschiffgesellschaften und Reedereien in ihrer Existenz. Seit Monaten mehren sich die Hilferufe von Verbänden und betroffenen Reedereien Richtung Berlin. Aber scheinbar verhallen diese Rufe und Bitten ungehört. Anders lässt sich die jetzt beschlossene Unterstützung nicht erklären. Wozu brauchen wir eine Aufstockung der Mittel für eine verbesserte Förderung von Ausbildung und Beschäftigung in der Seeschifffahrt am Standort Deutschland, wenn dieser in seiner Existenz bedroht ist?%The German Federal Government has improved promotion for training and employment in shipping at a time when it is predictable that German shipping is threatened with extinction, and a subsidy for scrapping vessels to save Germany as a location for shipping would make more sense. German parliament Bundestag has allocated an increase in shipping promotion to a 57.8 mill. € level in 2013 while primarily only 28.7 mill. € had been granted. For months, however, calls and pleas from shipping companies towards Berlin go unheard. Meanwhile charter rates for containerships, especially below 6,500 TE U, continue to decline. In many cases charter does not compensate operating costs, and banks deny help when shipping companies face problems to meet the requirements of debt service. From January to November, 145 container vessels with a total of 269,300 TEU have been wrecked, most of them ships with less than 4,000 TEU. But not all ?stressed? ships are being scrapped - many of them have been sold just a little above scrap price and thus even put more pressure on charter rates, because their new owners (not seldom from Greece) could operate on a lower cost level. A subsidy for scrapping would result in a beneficial renewal programme for German container shipping - an aspect hardly to be ignored in Berlin as some 50,000 jobs are on the line in shipping, ashore and at sea.