France’s defense ministry spokesman announced Tuesday that his government has signed a long-awaited Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the French Naval Group to acquire three FDI HN frigates (plus one in option).
On September 28th, Nikólaos Panayotópoulos, the Greek Minister of Defence, Pierre Eric Pommellet, CEO of Naval Group, and Eric Béranger, CEO of MBDA, signed a Memorandum of Understanding to open negotiations to provide the Hellenic Navy (HN) with three Defence and Intervention frigates (FDI HN) and their equipment as well as an optional additional frigate.
The FDI HN frigates will be built in the Naval Group shipyard in Lorient, where the second in the series for the French Navy has just entered production.
The FDI HN will be an asset of power and sovereignty for Greece.
With the FDI HN, the Hellenic Navy will have a state-of-the-art, high-performance surface fleet.
As a first-rank frigate, the FDI HN is a compendium of the best technologies of Naval Group, Thales and MBDA, which will notably supply the ASTER 30 B1 and Exocet MM40 Block 3C missiles. It will be fully interoperable with European and NATO fleets.
Delivery of the first two frigates will be in 2025 and the third will be transferred to the Greek Navy in 2026.
Greece will become the second customer of this multi-mission frigate, bringing the number of units produced from five for the French Navy to eight in total, plus one as an option.