Fincantieri, how Naviris will go with Naval after the Stx shipwreck
How Naviris, a joint-venture between Fincantieri and Naval Group in the naval vessel sector, is proceeding after the sinking of the Fincantieri acquisition of the former STX (of which Naval Group holds 11%)
For one union that is shipwrecked, another continues to sail.
With the stop of the acquisition of the French Stx shipyards by Fincantieri, questions are raised about the future of Naviris, an equal joint venture between the Trieste shipbuilding group and Naval Group.
“The Naviris joint venture between Naval Group and Fincantieri has been fully operational since January 2020 and supported by France and Italy”, reads the press release released Wednesday by the Mise. The note comes after the telephone conversation between the French economy minister Bruno Le Maire, the minister Stefano Patuanelli and the competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, with whom the Stx operation was put to an end.
The Chantiers de l'Atlantique dossier is a “separate” dossier from the Naviris one, explained a Naval Group spokesperson interviewed yesterday by Adnkronos.
Here are all the news on the joint venture between Fincantieri and Naval Group.
THE STOP OF THE SALE OF CHANTIERS DE L'ATLANTIQUE TO FINCANTIERI
Fincantieri's operation on Chantiers de l'Atlantique (formerly Stx), begun in September 2017 in Lyon at the bilateral Italy-France summit, ended on Wednesday. The purchase agreement for the acquisition of 50% of the Saint-Nazaire shipyards signed on February 2, 2018, will end on January 31, 2021, after being extended by five times.
The parties – Italy and France – have decided not to extend this agreement again. ( Here the comment by General Mario Arpino, former Chief of Defense Staff, on Start ).
Following the telephone interview between Le Maire, Patuanelli and Vestager, France and Italy took note of the fact that "the current economic context does not allow the continuation of the proposed merger between Chantiers de l'Atlantique and Fincantieri", according to the joint press release.
But both parties were keen to specify that the Naviris joint venture between Naval Group and Fincantieri has been fully operational since January 2020 .
WHAT IS NAVIRIS
With more than twenty years of collaboration, in 2019 Naval Group and Fincantieri signed the Alliance Cooperation Agreement, which defines the operational terms and the roadmap of the joint venture of the military shipbuilding industry.
This partnership consolidates the shared desire of the two CEOs (Giuseppe Bono of Fincantieri and Hervé Guillou of Naval Group, succeeded by Pierre Éric Pommellet in March) to build a future of excellence for the naval engineering industry and for the Marine.
The objective for both groups is to improve their ability to serve their respective national navies, to acquire new export contracts, to develop new technologies and, ultimately, to increase the competitiveness of the naval sectors of the two countries.
The Italian-French alliance in military ships also enjoys the support of the two countries with the intergovernmental agreement, signed in February 2020 in Naples by the two defense ministers, Lorenzo Guerini and Florence Parly.
NAVIRIS SUPPORTED BY ITALY AND FRANCE
Naviris, as the French Ministry of Economic Development and the French Ministry of Economy recalled in the joint note, “has actively begun to envisage export projects and has launched joint R&T projects. The joint venture is also developing projects for both the French and Italian navies and for wider contexts, such as the development of the European patrol corvette backed by Pesco ”.
WHAT NAVAL GROUP SAID
Also for Naval Group, shareholder of the former Stx France with 11%, there will be no impact from the stop to the sale of the French yards to Fincantieri.
“We are minority shareholders of the Chantiers de l'Atlantique and therefore this decision does not change our reason for being in the capital. We are present to ensure and guarantee the industrial sovereignty of France especially as regards the construction of military ships ”, explains a spokesman for the Naval Group interviewed by Adnkronos .
The Chantiers de l'Atlantique dossier is a “separate” dossier from the Naviris one. “It has no impact. We continue to collaborate with Fincantieri and we are very satisfied ”, added the spokesperson.
NAVIRIS HAS OBTAINED NATO CERTIFICATION
The news of the NATO certification for the joint venture of the military yards proves that the two dossiers are really "unrelated".
In fact, just last week, Naviris officially received the ISO 9001: 2015 and Aqap 2110 certifications from Lloyd's Register, in accordance with the provisions of the supplementary NATO regulation for the main defense suppliers.
These certifications, a note read, are a further step forward in the development of the joint venture, whose purpose is to manage export and cooperation programs for surface ships as well as research and development projects.
To manage the complex and highly strategic projects in which it is involved, it was essential for Naviris to build a high-level Organization and Quality Management system.
CONTRACTS ALREADY AWARDED
The Organization and Quality Management system is in fact fully active on the two contracts already awarded last June by Occar , the European Organization for Cooperation in Arms. That is the R&T contract for a program of 5 projects requested by France and Italy (June 2020) and the feasibility study for the half-life modernization of the four 'Horizon' class destroyers (July 2020).
With reference to the latter "between mid-September and mid-October, Naviris awarded all contracts for their respective activities to OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) suppliers of the combat system, including Leonardo, Thales, MBDA, and the Eurosam consortia ( formed by MBDA and Thales) and SIGEN (by Electronics and Thales), "explained to AnalisiDifesa Enrico Bonetti, Coo Naviris.
IN THE FUTURE OF NAVIRIS THE EUROPEAN CORVETTE
According to the release, the next steps for Naviris will consist in contributing to new European projects. Naviris will be involved in particular in the Epc – European Patrol Corvette project, as EU countries collaborate to create an innovative and modular design for the coming decades.
“Coordinated by Italy and currently including France, Spain and Greece (with Portugal as an observer), the EPC program constitutes a fundamental effort to affirm Naviris as a 'naval design authority' on the international scene”, underlined AnalysisDifesa . The project benefits from the support of the European Commission through the European Defense Fund (EDF).
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/fincantieri-come-andra-naviris-con-naval-dopo-il-naufragio-stx/ on Mon, 01 Feb 2021 06:57:35 +0000.