Takeover of Frankfurt-Hahn: Union calls for airport sales ban on Russian oligarchs

Acquisition of Frankfurt-Hahn
Union calls for airport sales ban on Russian oligarchs

The former American military airfield Hahn could go to the pharmaceutical billionaire Viktor Charitonin. The CDU and CSU view this with great concern. They fear serious damage for the Federal Republic – and the possible closeness of the oligarch to Vladimir Putin.

Union politicians have called on the federal government to prevent a takeover of Frankfurt-Hahn Airport in Rhineland-Palatinate by the Russian investor Viktor Charitonin. “The Federal Minister of Economics must avert foreign and economic damage from Germany with a sales ban,” said CSU MP Sebastian Brehm. He accused the state government in Mainz of deceiving the citizens.

According to media reports, the Russian pharmaceutical billionaire Charitonin, who is also a co-owner of the Nürburgring racetrack, is one of two investors with whom the insolvent Hunsrück Airport has concluded purchase agreements. According to the insolvency administrator Jan Markus Plathner, the creditors of the airport company are to advise on how to proceed on Tuesday, only one of the two purchase contracts is to be completed.

Brehm accused the Rhineland-Palatinate government of misleading the citizens about charitonin. Although the Russian is not affected by EU sanctions, the USA has had him on a list in connection with allegations of manipulation in the 2016 US presidential election since 2019. Those who remain silent about this “want to fool people,” explained the CSU politician.

“Only with the blessing of Putin”

The Rhineland-Palatinate CDU MP Julia Klöckner also sharply criticized a potential deal with Charitonin against the background of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. “Anyone who is successful in the pharmaceutical business in Russia as a Russian can only do so with Putin’s blessing,” she told the “Rheinische Post”.

When asked whether the possible sale of the airport was the subject of an investment review by the federal government, a spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Economics said he could “neither confirm nor deny” this. He also cannot say whether the airport is rated as a critical infrastructure. The decision would be the result of “a rather complicated examination”.

Hahn Airport is located in the Hunsrück between Mainz and Trier on the site of a former US military base. It is majority owned by the Chinese HNA Airport Group. The federal state of Hesse also holds shares in the airport.

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