Greece to launch talks with France over FREMM frigates, corvettes

WARSAW, Poland ― The Greek Ministry of Defence may acquire two FREMM multimission frigates for its Navy, and as such, Athens plans to launch negotiations with the French government in February.

A Greek source close to the deal told local daily Kathimerini that the decision follows an earlier verbal agreement between French President Emmanuel Macron and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. The Greek order could be expanded by a further two vessels.

Due to the cost of the frigates, which have an estimated tag price of between €500 million and €600 million (U.S. $612 million to U.S. $735 million), the Greek ministry is also considering the purchase of French Gowind-class corvettes for its Navy, according to the source.

The FREMM frigate was jointly designed by the Franco-Italian consortium of Naval Group and Fincantieri for the two countries’ navies. In addition to the potential deal with Athens, Paris has sold one frigate to Morocco and one to Egypt. Naval Group also developed the Gowind.

Naval Group says the FREMM is a versatile vessel enabled to execute a wide range of missions encompassing all warfare domains. These include anti-aircraft, anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, as well as land attack and command ship missions, among others.

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