Green light to complete remaining required and non-mandatory investments Cosco Shipping in port of Piraeus publication of the Government Gazette with a presidential decree approving general plan Piraeus Port Authority (PAA). However, it will take another two to three months before a new environmental impact study, which also includes a new traffic study, is approved. The corresponding file is expected to be submitted at the end of February. According to the listing company’s currently available data, the remaining outstanding contract debt mandatory investment, with a total budget of 293.78 million euros, is 169 million. In addition to the mandatory investment, the master plan also provides for an additional investment of 167 million dollars, bringing the total planned investment budget to 450 million dollars. Of these, budget investments of 120 million are currently contracted or completed, according to the PPA and the Ministry of Shipping.

New process

The PPA submitted the first version of the master plan to the Ministry of Shipping in 2017 and an updated version was approved at the end of 2019. But the decision of the Council of State, after corresponding appeals from the Piraean subjects, returned the process to the starting point, considering the previous licensing incompatible with the framework of the European Union.

The new process following the approval of the new master plan has led, through the relevant decisions of the Council of Europe, to the creation of a new institutional framework for all ports of the country of international and national importance (16+16). =32 ports), ministry sources say. In other words, the same procedure will be required for the re-approval of the master plan for the port organization of Thessaloniki, as well as all privatized ports such as Igoumenitsa, Heraklion and Volos.

Traffic research

The new structure obliges the investment authority to first obtain the approval of a strategic environmental impact study, and then proceed to draw up a comprehensive development plan or master plan, and also requires a corresponding traffic study to be carried out. A critical issue for the already congested Piraeus road network.

Thus, according to the Ministry of Shipping, the presidential decree on the PPA master plan includes all provisions for the operation and further development of the port, port zones and subzones, land use, building conditions, new mandatory and non-investment, environmental obligations, etc. The most important environmental obligation, which was established for the full implementation of the PD is a requirement to prepare a comprehensive traffic study at the stage of environmental licensing projects.

P.D. is divided into 3 parts: the first includes the spatial organization and development program of the port of Piraeus, the second includes directions and measures for environmental protection and the third, the memorandum includes a topographical scheme with the conditions for building and land use of the port areas.

The most important investments in Piraeus concern the expansion of the passenger port to serve cruise ships, the expansion of the car processing station, the supply of equipment, a significant amount of construction work and the improvement of the infrastructure of the shipyard, including tanks.

The master plan also includes other optional investments such as the development of four hotels, the development of a logistics center on the former 80-acre State Materials Management Organization site, and the construction of two parking buildings.