Norway will buy British combat frigates

Norway has chosen the British frigates of Bae Systems rather than those of the French Naval Group, invoking strategic reasons and the proximity to the United Kingdom in a context of increased tensions with Russia.

France is excluded from this order of combat frigates. Oslo makes a very specific choice in the current very tense geopolitical context. This announcement of the Norwegian Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Store, Sunday August 31 in Oslo, falls like a cleaver for the European Union of Defense in general, and France in particular. For the European Union because, unlike its Scandinavian neighbors such as Finland and Sweden, Norway is not part of the Union. By choosing British combat boats – out of union from Brexit -, she marks her gesture. And then on the French side, it is a disappointment for Naval Group, the French shipyard, European leader, which hoped to be able to place its defense ships. A new disappointment for the French company which was recently excluded from the Canada call for tenders for a contract of a dozen submarines.

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The Norwegian head of government invokes the preference expressed by the country’s sailors in the name of the performance of buildings built by the British Bae Systems. In reality, it is the fruit of a strategic partnership between Norway and the United Kingdom. The two allies are very close countries and the geopolitical situation which dominates today in this region of the world has been decisive. We can think in particular of the rise of tensions with Russia. It is one of the main points in the seas that line the Arctic.

Norway shares a maritime border with Russia in the Barent Sea. In general, the situation pushes the countries of the region to modernize their naval defense capacities, which is more within the framework of NATO, the Atlantic Alliance, whose European financial participation is very criticized by US President Donald Trump.

This choice of Norway for British boats rather than French is a process of geopolitical evidence, because the ships built by Naval Group are trustworthy and competitive. Does Naval Group are wrong to be more than 60% owned by the French State and 35% by the other Tricolor Thales industrialist? Norway, a political-economic partner of the United Kingdom, is careful of such an analysis, but, according to some observers, the facts are stubborn in the period we live. For the French and European Naval Group, it is a contract evaluated between 11 and 12 billion euros that passes under his nose.