HAMBURG (dpa-AFX) - Hamburg's Senator for Economic Affairs Melanie Leonhard is bracing for further protests against shipping company MSC's entry into port logistics company HHLA, but ultimately expects an agreement to be reached. "I believe that this will now be a very, very strenuous process for all sides," the SPD politician said Tuesday during a political harbor tour organized by the environmental organizations Nabu and BUND. But she said she was convinced that there were also many players on the employee side who wanted to shape the process. "And you have to approach them and talk to them, then there will be a good solution for everyone."

The city of Hamburg and the world's largest container shipping company, MSC, had announced plans for the Swiss company to join HHLA. Currently, the city holds about 69 percent of the listed Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA). In the future, this is to be jointly managed in a joint venture, with the city holding 50.1 percent and MSC 49.9 percent of the shares. According to Verdi, some 2,500 people, mainly HHLA employees, had recently taken to the streets to protest against this and had announced further protests.

Leonhard defended the plans against criticism that the Senate wanted to sell off the port. Decisive for the state government, he said, were the preservation of the co-determination rights of HHLA's workforce, a majority of the city in the company and the right to buy back the shares at fair prices in the event of changes. "These safeguards were the benchmarks for why it was possible to reach an agreement with MSC and not with others." It's not about money, Leonhard stressed. "We don't want to capitalize HHLA, we want a strategic partnership for the Port of Hamburg."

However, Leonhard cannot understand the sniffles in Bremen and Bremerhaven. After all, he said, MSC already operates a terminal in Bremerhaven. "This participation has just been extended into the 40s." And this is not about navel-gazing individual ports, he said, but about the fact that the ports of the German Bight have to hold their own against the western ports. "Let me be clear, I also didn't get a call from (Lower Saxony's Economics Minister) Olaf Lies when Hapag-Lloyd got involved in Wilhelmshaven. That's the way it is. You have to deal with that." After the deal was announced, Bremen's mayor Andreas Bovenschulte (SPD) had complained that he had not been informed in advance./klm/DP/he