To Repair Relations With France, Australia Reaches $584 Mn Settlement With Submarine Maker

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese reached a deal with France over a scrapped submarine deal in hopes that Canberra-Paris rift can be repaired. The damage control would cost the Albanese government $583.58 million.

The damage occurred when Albanese’s predecessor canceled a multibillion-dollar order for submarines with French military shipyard Naval Group.

It formed AUKUS, a new trilateral security partnership for the Indo-Pacific with the UK and the US, much to the anger of France, leading to an unprecedented diplomatic crisis.

The deal at that time also angered China – a rising power in the Indo-Pacific region.

Albanese told members of the press that his government reached a ‘fair and equitable’ settlement with the Naval Group. The submarine fleet if Australia would have purchased from France would have cost it $40 billion as per the deal signed back in 2016.

The new submarine fleet which will be brought under the trilateral security partnership with the United States and the UK is expected to cost more. The AUKUS deal was for a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines armed with American and British technology.

“Given the gravity of the challenges that we face both in the region and globally, it is essential that Australia and France once again unite to defend our shared principles and interests. We deeply respect France’s role and active engagement in the Indo-Pacific,” Albanese was quoted as saying by news agency Reuters.

Australia, the United States, France and its partners have raised concerns about China’s growing influence in the Pacific. The concerns arose after Solomon Islands signed a security agreement with Beijing earlier this year and Samoa and Kiribati also signed agreements with Beijing to bolster their infrastructure.

Albanese also said that he was looking forward to taking up French president Emmanuel Macron’s invitation to visit Paris.

Defense minister Peter Dutton following the signing of the AUKUS pact last year said that Naval Group’s Attack-class submarines were no longer suited to Australia’s needs.

Naval Group at that time said that a day ago the company received an official letter from the Australian navy saying it was “extremely satisfied that performance of the French submarine was excellent” on the same day the cancellation was announced by the Morrison government.

(with inputs from Reuters)

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