For as long as most people can remember, the way of getting things done in Greek shipping was to go about it quietly.
Discussions behind closed doors, polite but firm persuasion and little publicity — that was the recipe and, to a certain extent, it remains so.
But over the past five years, relations between the Greek shipping community — not just shipowners but also ancillary services — and the state have been strained, to the point where, on several occasions, normally diplomatic bodies or persons have burst out.
The latest assault on the harmonious collaboration between the country’s leading foreign-exchange contributor and the government came after what can only be called a sneaky change to the taxation status of the industry.
In a pre-Christmas move, the ministry of finance slid an article into a law dealing with property taxation that tripled tax for shipping companies and made it mandatory, taking the community unawares and rocking the foundations of relations with the administration.
Reaction from both Piraeus and London was quick, with Union of Greek Shipowners (UGS) president Theodore Veniamis and Haralambos J Fafalios, chairman of the London-based Greek Shipping Co-operation Committee (GSCC), both labelling the move “unconstitutional”.
During the UGS annual meeting in February, Veniamis warned of a breakdown in trust and co-operation between the government and the maritime community.
Calling the move an “oxymoron”, he went on to say it had created a broader negative climate for any type of business investment in Greece, given that legal stability of the institutional framework is a prerequisite for any prudent investor.
Since that time, official shipping sources have kept relatively quiet, presumably continuing their pressure behind the scenes in an effort to overturn the decision. But individuals have not held their counsel quite so carefully.
In the wake of a long, enthusiastic and generally upbeat speech by shipping minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis at the Economia Business Tank shipping conference in April, Panos Laskaridis, joint secretary of the UGS, seemed barely able to hide his irritation. He called the finance ministry’s actions “ill-concieved”.
“They could lead to a smaller fleet being handed over by my generation to the next generation — something that has not happened in the past 72 years,” Laskaridis warned.
His brother, Thanassis, free from the constraints of holding an official position, was more blunt when speaking with TradeWinds recently.
“The government has goofed, they have goofed big time. And it is most unfortunate that the change of platform on the taxation issue changed at the current point in time and under the current administration — more so as the current prime minister has worked very hard in many other ways related to shipping and has been both appreciative and helpful,” he said.
“What is a bigger issue I think our administration has failed to grasp is that a lot of money that has flowed into Greek shipping that is not Greek shipowners’ money,” he continued.
“This kind of money cannot be deemed to be patriotically tied up to Greece, so changing rules and taxations on such kinds of ‘hot’ money, which requires complete certainty of forward tax regimes, is very shortsighted,” Laskaridis said, pointing out that billions of dollars have poured in from private-equity and other funds.
Hardly any substantial investment in Greece since the 1950s has been made without the support or prompting of revenues created from shipping, Laskaridis comments. “Onassis, Niarchos, Andreadis, Evgenidis, Vardinogiannis, Latsis, Chandris, Koumandaros, Constantakopoulos, not to mention ourselves, are just some of the Greek families that have created substantial land-based investments in Greece, utilising their shipping-related resources,” he said.
Even top owner John Angelicoussis, in an interview with TradeWinds quarterly magazine TW+, commented that Greek owners are contributing to the state, not only financially but also through the training and employment of a significant number of people.
Disruptions between shipping and the state started back in 2009 when, shortly after general elections in October, the stand-alone shipping ministry was abolished and various parts of its portfolio shuffled around between different ministries. An on-again, off-again situation continued until June 2012 when, once more, after general elections, the ministry was reinstated, much to the approval of the shipping community.
But the course and effect of these hiccups is clear from the figures for ships registered under the Greek flag. Annual data compiled by Lloyd’s Register/Fairplay and released by the GSCC shows that from a total of 929 ships in 2010, registrations slid to 917 in 2011, 862 in 2012, 829 in 2013 before falling off further this year to stand at 819 vessels.
Each year, the GSCC’s comments have mirrored the situation. In 2012, for example, it noted that: “Unfortunately, due to continuing concerns relating to the structural organisation of the administration, the fleet registered under the Greek flag continued to decline.”
This year, the committee said: “It is to be hoped that the severe loss of confidence created by the uncertainty of the tax regime will not result in heavy losses in the future.”
Perhaps the attitude of the Greek shipping community can most succinctly be summed up in the words of Intercargo chairman John Platsidakis.
Last December, at a Women’s International Shipping & Trading Association (WISTA) forum in Piraeus, Platsidakis, along with other speakers, was asked whether the Greek state and Greek shipping can recover hand in hand from the current crisis.
“The answer is a simple and clear ‘No’”, he said.
“Although I am conservatively optimistic for the prospects for the Greek state, I am solidly optimistic for the prospects for Greek shipping.”
