Greek prime minister's fine balancing act

Athens

FIRST it was for sale, then the deal was scrapped, then the sell-off was back on and now it is to be a joint venture, or maybe not.

Few issues sum up the confusion of leftist Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's first two months in office better than the bewildering saga of the country's biggest port, Piraeus, a bastion of militant trade unionists. His government's first declaration in January was to say the asset sale - a key part of Greece's privatisation programme agreed with international creditors - had been cancelled.

Athens then appeared to change heart: on a trip last month to China, which is a bidder and already runs part of the port, the deputy prime minister said that the sale would go ahead. Three days later, the economy minister appeared on television to insist the sale remained halted and that a joint venture would be agreed instead. The same day, Greece sent its lenders a list of reforms that cited the Piraeus port sale as among the privatisations going ahead. Whether the port is actually open for bidders is anybody's gues…