CMA CGM Pantheon in Gdańsk. A success for the port and a bitter lesson about the absence of maritime policy

On Tuesday morning the CMA CGM Pantheon, one of the newest and largest container ships in the world, entered the T3 terminal of Baltic Hub in Gdańsk. She is almost 400 metres long, has a capacity of more than 24,000 TEU and dual-fuel propulsion running on LNG. Baltic Hub confirmed her call at the terminal on 22 September 2026.

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26 september 2026   |   12:55   |   Source: Gazeta Morska   |   Prepared by: Tadeusz Hatalski, kpt. ż.w.   |   Print

fot. Baltic Hub

This is without doubt a reason for satisfaction. Gdańsk has a terminal capable of handling the largest container ships afloat. Not long ago vessels of that size avoided the Baltic altogether, and today they come directly to a Polish port. Yet the sight of CMA CGM Pantheon alongside in Gdańsk prompts, next to that satisfaction, a far more bitter reflection. Why do we take pride in the fact that one of the most modern container ships in the world has called at a Polish port, instead of being able to say that OUR most modern container ship has arrived in Gdańsk?

Two state shipping lines, one crisis

The question leads back more than thirty years. In the early 1990s Europe had two large state-owned shipping companies: Polish Ocean Lines and France's Compagnie Générale Maritime. They operated networks of comparable reach and fleets of comparable size. They had something else in common: both were then in deep economic crisis.

In coming out of that crisis the two owners took different paths, not because of the companies themselves but because of radically different policies pursued by the two states.

France: 2.825 billion francs and a recovery plan

The French government took the view that a large national shipping company is an asset that should not simply be left to its fate. It approved a far-reaching recovery plan for CGM: restructuring, reorganisation and then privatisation. The recovery measures were accompanied by capital support from the state. In proceedings before the European Commission concerning state aid, the French government acknowledged that a total of 2.825 billion francs had been injected into CGM. The Commission raised objections, but accepted the argument that the alternative to state support leading to restructuring was liquidation of the company. To avoid that, the French government chose restructuring, the recovery of the company's ability to operate on the market, and then privatisation. The Commission ultimately accepted the funding as permissible state aid.

Poland: the decision not to decide

And what did the Polish government do about Polish Ocean Lines? It did not lift a finger to help the company in any way. Any support for a state-owned firm was regarded as reprehensible and embarrassing, almost a return to a command economy. Polish Ocean Lines received no financial assistance at all.

In 1996 CGM was bought by the privately owned Compagnie Maritime d'Affrètement. In 1999 the two companies were formally merged as CMA CGM. The group itself now points to the acquisition of CGM as one of the decisive moments that laid the foundation for its later global expansion.

And what was happening to Polish Ocean Lines at the same time? No comparable government recovery programme emerged. There was no equivalent of the coordinated French operation: capital support, restructuring, rebuilding of economic capacity, privatisation. That does not, of course, mean that every problem of Polish Ocean Lines was caused by the government. The company's condition depended on management, the state of world shipping, technological change, containerisation, costs, an organisational structure inherited from the past and many other factors. But exactly the same can be said of CGM. The French company was also in debt. It also ran unprofitable services. It also had to sell ships and lay off staff. The difference was that France had a defined policy towards its company and took remedial action, while the Polish government produced neither a concept nor any action at all.

One hundred and eighty-five ships then, two today

More than thirty years have passed since then. Today CMA CGM operates a fleet of more than 700 ships serving trade routes around the world. And Polish Ocean Lines? Their website currently lists two owned ro-ro vessels, Francesco Nullo and Pol Stella, together with technical and operational management of a third ship, Port Gdynia. Yet there was a time when Polish Ocean Lines was one of Europe's largest liner shipping companies. In 1976 it operated 185 ships. One hundred and eighty-five ships then, two owned and one under management today.

The French flag is no accident

Let us return to berth T3 in Gdańsk. Alongside the container terminal lies CMA CGM Pantheon. A new 24,000 TEU vessel, built in 2026, deployed on one of the world's most important container routes, Asia to Europe. More than that, she sails under the French flag. CMA CGM has also announced that the entire series of ten new LNG-powered giants to which Pantheon belongs will be registered under the French flag, a decision the group links among other things to the employment of additional French seafarers. That is no longer the history of a company. That is a state's maritime policy.

In Poland, meanwhile, we have spent more than thirty years discussing whether and how to bring ships back under our own flag. The history of CGM and Polish Ocean Lines offers no simple answer to the question of what might have been. It cannot honestly be claimed that had the Polish government acted in the early 1990s as the French government did, Polish Ocean Lines would today be a company the size of CMA CGM. We do not know that. We can, however, say something else. Polish Ocean Lines would have been given a real chance. A chance at deep restructuring instead of the gradual loss of the potential it held. At keeping some of its liner services. At rebuilding capital. At finding an investor. At taking part in the growth of global container shipping, which began to accelerate sharply in the 1990s.

The French created that chance for their company. We did not create it for ours.

Two ways of reading the same news

The news of CMA CGM Pantheon calling at Gdańsk can therefore be read in two ways. The first is optimistic. We have an excellent, modern port. Baltic Hub now has annual capacity of 4.5 million TEU and more than two kilometres of quays, and can receive the largest container ships in the world. Poland has built port infrastructure it did not possess even a dozen or so years ago.

There is a second reading, considerably less pleasant. We have built a port capable of receiving the world's largest ships, but those ships belong to foreign owners. Our ports serve world and European trade, yet we have no liner company of our own on anything like that scale. We have infrastructure for global shipping, but no shipping capacity of our own.

A port is not a fleet

The port matters. But a port and a fleet are not the same thing. A terminal can move a container. A ship carries it across an ocean. It is the shipowner who organises the transport, signs the contracts, owns or controls the tonnage, builds a network of agents, employs people, draws on financing, orders further vessels and shares in the value created in world maritime transport.

Maritime policy cannot therefore end with the development of ports. It has to cover shipping as well. The sight of CMA CGM Pantheon in Gdańsk is a pleasure, because it shows how far Polish ports have come. At the same time it is a reminder of the road Polish shipping did not travel. And that is what is bitter in this news. Today we can write with pride that one of the most modern container ships in the world has called at Gdańsk. Had state policy towards Polish shipping been different some thirty years ago, we might perhaps be writing something far better: that OUR most modern container ship has arrived in Gdańsk.

We do not know whether that would have happened. We do know that the French attempted to save their great shipping company, and we know the result today. CMA CGM has more than 700 ships.

The Polish government made no such attempt. Polish Ocean Lines has two ships of its own and manages a third. Sometimes the history of maritime policy can be told in exactly that few words.

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