ATHENS: The Greek Government, ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems and Abu Dhabi Mar jointly announced today that the three parties have finally reached an agreement on the finalization of the draft contract which implements the Framework Agreement of March 18, 2010. Following this development, the Minister of National Defence Evangelos Venizelos made the following statement:
“After a series of tough and difficult negotiations, which reached a breaking point more than once, the respective negotiating teams managed to approve the draft contracts today.
“The overall arrangement that was reached opens a new page for the Greek Navy, the Skaramangas Shipyards and the whole of the Greek shipbuilding sector.
“We tried to break up from the dead-end that had been created from 2000 until October 2009, putting under direct threat the country’s largest shipbuilding industry, thousands of jobs, the whole submarines program of the Greek Navy and more than two billion euros paid by the Greek state without ever getting anything in return.
“Enjoying a complete freedom of thought, the Navy together with BWB, Germany’s Federal Office of Defence Technology and Procurements, audited and certified the technical competence of the submarine “Papanikolis,” which consists a very important asset of the Greek government and will be used in the most beneficial manner for the Navy and the state budget.
“It should be primarily noted that the Greek government does not proceed to order any new submarines, but instead it preserves orders from the past decade by replacing the economically and operationally unattractive modernization of two Type 209submarines to build two state-of the-art submarines of the Type 214, with minimal cost (estimated to 175 million euro) in relation to the defence and development benefits.
“But, even this small cost is theoretical, taking into account that the price agreed upon for the two new submarines is fixed and non-adaptive, while the cost for the modernization of the first submarine -whose construction is yet to be complete- is almost equal to the fixed price for the purchase of a new more modern and bigger vessel.
“The new contracts eliminate the infectious and problematic mechanism of the offsets and impose strict and detailed guarantees of transparency under the permanent control of the Parliament.
“The drafts for the new contracts will be subject to ratification by law in the Greek Parliament in order to come into force until September 30, 2010.
“As I have already said in the responsible parliamentary committee, all documents and relevant information are without more ado at the disposal of the Greek parliamentary political parties of immediate examination.
“The Government Council for Foreign and Defence Affairs (KYSEA) and the Inter-ministerial Privatization Committee will meet tomorrow and right after this, the ratifying bill will be presented before the National Assembly.”
