Greece has formally completed negotiations with France for acquiring its fourth FDI frigate, the Themistocles, with the signing of a \u20ac982 million contract on Friday by the General Directorate for Defense Investments and Armaments.<\/p>\n
The agreement modifies an original order for three vessels and settles the final pending issue between Athens and Paris.<\/p>\n
The Kimon class (FDI HN) is a heavily armed variant of France\u2019s Defense and Intervention Frigate. Greece agreed to purchase three vessels \u2013 with an option for a fourth \u2013 in September 2021 as part of a \u20ac3 billion defense package with France\u2019s Naval Group.<\/p>\n
Greek defense-industry participation in the program is expected to exceed 25%, a threshold now required for all new defense procurement initiatives.<\/p>\n
The addition of a fourth frigate was approved in the summer by KYSEA, the Government Council on Foreign and Defense Affairs, and the Greek Parliament, reinforcing the surface fleet and strengthening the Armed Forces.<\/p>\n
The class\u2019s first ship, F601 Kimon, is completing final trials and is scheduled for handover to the Hellenic Navy on December 18 at the port of Lorient, in the presence of Defense Minister Nikos Dendias and senior military officials.<\/p>\n
The vessel will then sail to Brest to receive its weapons systems, including Exocet Block III anti-ship missiles and Aster 30 air-defense missiles.<\/p>\n
The ship will not yet conduct live test firings. Weapons certification will occur on the French frigate Amiral Ronarc\u2019h, ensuring full integration of the SETIS combat system, Sea Fire 500 radar, and Aster 30 missiles.<\/p>\n
Before the Kimon heads to the Salamis naval base, the crew will complete familiarization and preparation in French waters. Weather permitting, the frigate is expected to arrive in Greece in the early days of the new year, with a formal reception ceremony planned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Greece has formally completed negotiations with France for acquiring its fourth FDI frigate, the Themistocles, with the signing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[473,2000,299,12072,36,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-570255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-defense","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-foreign-affairs","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-politics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115549180054486848","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}