For nearly two months now, Greece has a shipping minister who is actually a Cypriot.
It was an unusual but not entirely surprising choice that may well breathe some new life into the job.
This article is part of our Greece business focus, which includes articles on future fuels, tonnage tax wobbles and how the nation’s shipowners are seeking ways to reassert their dominance.
Christos Stylianidis, 65, the politician and technocrat who has been entrusted with this role, boasts a background that has taken him far beyond the borders of his native Cyprus. This small island republic shares its ethnicity and language with Greece.
Between 2014 and 2019, the conservative politician worked as a European Commissioner in charge of humanitarian help and crisis management. As part of his brief, he coordinated the European Union’s response to a new Ebola outbreak in Africa.
At the end of his term in Brussels, then-incoming Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis brought him into his new cabinet as head of a new ministry for climate crisis and civil protection — literally a firefighting job that put Stylianidis at the forefront of every natural disaster befalling Greece for a number of years.
For insiders, it was not too much of a surprise then that Mitsotakis turned to Stylianidis again, a safe pair of hands, to help clean up a mess that toppled the previous shipping minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis.
Varvitsiotis was one of several officials and managers who lost his job in September after the callous behaviour of a ferry crew caused a passenger to drown at Piraeus port, literally a stone’s throw away from the shipping ministry.
To judge by the first few weeks into the post, Stylianidis does not cut a bad figure.
His experience in Brussels and his provenance from Cyprus — a pro-business former British colony — make him look and sound more in tune with international developments and sensibilities than the average Greek politician.
In an early sign of this, he was one of the few senior Greek shipping figures to attend the Global Maritime Forum in Athens last month — an event in which major charterers rather than local shipowners play a leading role.
Speaking to a crowd well outside the usual Greek shipping bubble, Stylianidis knew how to make all the right noises.
“We welcome the IMO strategy [on greenhouse gas reduction],” he told the audience, adding that the shipping industry can not achieve its decarbonisation targets without “strong government support”.
“It is imperative to work with you, we need your expertise,” Stylianidis concluded.
However, his appointment to Greece’s shipping ministry is emblematic of another trend as well — that of increasing osmosis between the Greek and Cypriot shipping establishments.
Several maritime companies that were originally active in just one of the two countries, now have offices in both.
Such cross-fertilising became especially marked in 2016, when several Greek firms set up secondary offices in Cyprus as a backup in case Greece crashed out of Europe’s single currency.
Greek and Cypriot shipowners held a joint jamboree in Athens earlier this year to celebrate their good relations.
During the Maritime Cyprus conference in Limassol last month, George Procopiou became the first Greek owner to receive Cyprus’ shipping personality prize — the island republic’s most prestigious maritime award.
