Greece, France sign Letter of Intent for Two 4,000 tons Frigates

The official announcement came as Greek Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos visited his French counterpart Florence Parly in Paris.

J’ai signé avec mon homologue 🇬🇷 une lettre d’intention, portant sur le projet d’acquisition par la Grèce de deux frégates de défense et d’intervention (FDI) : une frégate agile, combattante, qui équipera notre marine nationale à partir de 2023. 2/2 pic.twitter.com/7wylRQJSk7
— Florence Parly (@florence_parly) October 10, 2019

Panagiotopoulos declared to the press that there was “a long way to go” before an agreement is reached regarding the final (technical) configuration of the frigates.

Artist impression of a Belharra / FDI frigate launching a Naval Cruise Missile. Naval Group image.

As Naval News previously reported following an exclusive interview with Naval Group, the Hellenic Navy’s need is clearly for multi-mission frigates, but one deciding factor is MBDA’s Naval Cruise Missile. France is proposing the NCM as part of the FDI deal.

“Old meets new” at the Shore Integration Facility: A Lafayette-class frigate sailing past the integrated mast of its replacement: The future FDI frigate.

Combined teams of DGA, the French Navy (Marine Nationale), Thales and Naval Group started putting the new SEA FIRE radar through its pace in September at the Shore Integration Facility (SIF) located in Southern France, near Toulon.

The FDI (Frégate de Defense et d’Intervention – Intervention and Defense Frigates) is the future class of frigate on order for the French Navy. Steel cut for the first ship of the class is now on October 25, 2019.