From the 20th to the 21st century – With a look in the future

The transition from the 20th to the 21st century has been sealed by both the global opening, not only maritime, economy and the entry of new big «players» into the world chessboard. This has happened so strongly after the fall and/or transformation of political systems that have reformed international balance, such as the transition from the USSR to the new Russia, or the transformation of China into a global power that has gained a prominent role in the map of developments.

During the same period, Greece lived its own seasons of peculiar and sometimes problematic maturity, which nowadays is a commonplace that they had critical aspects of restraining a forced dynamic course.

It has not always been that way: the distortions that accompanied the Greek state in the era both after its accession to the European construction and the outbreak of globalization, unfortunately, have not become as comprehensible as they should have been in their time. One of the most stable, «prophetic», authentic, free and stubborn Greek voices in this direction was that of the historical magazine «Oikonomikos Tahidromos», which gave a lasting battle of decades in the effort to contribute so that Greece and its political system to see farther and cleaner.

The magazine, its director Yannis Marinos, the editorial team, the columnists, and the collaborators of the paper, did so systematically and without bending over the many reactions throughout the spectrum of economic and political activity, very often in an acute conflict with anyone who wished, for their own reasons, to maintain an obsolete and retrograde status quo.

It also did so with its articles on shipping, of which only one part, prophetic and fighting, is being republished here by the records of the «OT», showing the reader, as it did twenty years since the original publication of these texts, as much as they were first published.

This last section of the special supplement of «To Vima» newspaper and » Oikonomikos Tahidromos » for shipping and its history in the 20th century and its course for nearly two decades in the 21st century presents (with the valuable contribution of the UGS and the FEIR), some of the most recently updated relative figures, challenges and orientations of the new era for Greek and international shipping.

The complexity of the modern world is now such that a comprehensive, complete and thorough approach to the «next day’s» shaping of global shipping developments, in which Hellenism will undoubtedly continue to be a protagonist, is a task which in itself requires a very wide range of special approaches.

Fields are many and complex. Just to name a few basic, it must stand on radical technological developments and the ever growing importance of ‘’green technology’’, the ever increasingly demanding global financial sector, the complexity of state and, above all, transnational and international legislation, on education issues, but also on international political developments that have a direct impact, especially in phases of accelerating, shipping and its work.

It was not the task of this special historical supplement to approach all of the above, but that, of course, can happen with the appropriate completeness in the future. But it is the task of all those involved in shipping to do so – and indeed in common.

And it is up to the Greek state to ensure as soon as possible that it will do its utmost to help maintain and increase Greek maritime power and, above all, to create the necessary conditions for its maximum possible presence in Greece itself, especially for the benefit, above all, of its economy, of the country itself and of its people.

Our shipping is being prodded to abandon the Greek flag

Fortunately, they cannot weaken our shipping

IOBE: The goal is to attract as many shipping companies as possible

Union of Greek Shipowners: 2017-18 Annual Report

Union of Greek Shipowners: The institutional representative of Greek shipping