France signs contract with Greece to sell Rafale frigates and fighters

French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly will sign today (Thursday) in Athens a contract to sell Greece three defense and intervention frigates and six Rafale fighters, within two contracts that constitute a new strengthening of military cooperation between the two countries, according to Agence France-Presse.

Against the backdrop of tension with neighboring Turkey, Greece decided last year to strengthen its military capacity and requested from France 24 Rafale fighters and three frigates with a total value of more than 5.5 billion euros.

In the presence of the Director General of the Naval Group, Pierre-Eric Pomillet, the French Minister and her Greek counterpart, Nikos Panaiotopoulos, will first sign a contract for the three frigates to be manufactured by the Naval Group in Lorient, western France, to be delivered to the Greek Navy in 2025 and 2026. There is an option to purchase a fourth frigate.

Eric Trabet, General Manager of Dassault Aviation Group, was also present to sign a second contract related to the delivery of six additional new Rafale aircraft. A deal was signed to sell 18 of these fighters last year, including seven that were delivered to Greece.

The signing of these contracts, which alone amount to more than three billion euros, comes at a time when relations seem to be calming between Greece and Turkey, which promised to cooperate further in the face of the war in Ukraine.

Greece and France had begun to strengthen their military cooperation in the summer of 2020 to counter Turkish attempts to explore for gas in the disputed areas in the eastern Mediterranean.

Last September, the two countries concluded a “strategic partnership” in Paris, affirming their determination to strengthen a defensive Europe.

Ankara criticized the French-Greek agreement several times, saying that it threatens “regional peace and stability.”

But Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in February to the Greek parliament that the modernization of the Greek army aims to “strengthen the country’s arsenal.”

But an “unexpected” summit in Istanbul between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Greek prime minister “contributed to the improvement of bilateral relations due to the war in Ukraine,” Christos Rosakis, former vice president of the European Court of Human Rights, told AFP.

Contracts for additional frigates and Rafale fighters will be signed this afternoon on the eve of Greece’s National Day on the “Averov”, a museum ship symbolizing Greek maritime history, docked in Faleron, a maritime district on the outskirts of Athens.

On March 25, the Greeks celebrate the start of the war of independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1821. For this occasion, the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle stopped off the port of Piraeus.

The two ministers and heads of the two French groups will go there after signing the contract today.

The Rafale aircraft will take off Friday from the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle off Crete to take part in the traditional military parade in Athens attended by Florence Parly for the second time in a row.