Billions for Nothing

The Dutch shipyard Damen is demanding several billion euros in damages from the German Federal Ministry of Defense following the cancellation of the order for frigates for the Bundeswehr. It was bad enough that these frigates were ordered in the first place — at a cost of billions of euros. After the shipyard repeatedly fell behind schedule on the contract, Minister Pistorius finally pulled the plug and canceled the order.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine cites poor quality, cost overruns, and repeated delays as the reasons. Now the shipyard is billing for its alleged costs. A court will likely have to determine why this amount is said to be several billion euros.

It’s astonishing how quickly “several billion euros” are thrown out the window on such toys, while just two years ago, the basic child allowance failed due to a budget of 2.5 billion euros. We had already reported in June on the frigate debacle, where 2 billion euros had already been sunk into planning costs.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Read more https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/unternehmen/fregattenprojekt-f-126-milliarden-auf-dem-spiel-201292832.html

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