BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - According to the CDU/CSU, the federal government is letting Germany's seaports down with the National Ports Strategy adopted by the cabinet. "The German economy has been waiting two years for the long-promised National Ports Strategy and is now being bitterly disappointed by the traffic light coalition," said Christoph Ploß (CDU), the CDU and CSU chairman of the Bundestag Transport Committee, on Wednesday. "Neither a financially backed commitment by the federal government to the economic importance of the seaports nor an urgently needed package of measures for faster planning and construction have made it into the paper of the traffic light coalition - but you can't renovate quay walls with gentle words alone."

Germany's prosperity depends to a large extent on exports. "Two thirds of German foreign trade is handled via the seaports and around 70 percent of our energy requirements are covered by German ports," said Ploß. Maintaining the competitiveness of the ports is a national task of paramount importance, which the strategy paper does not even come close to addressing./fi/DP/mis