Portugal Orders Three FREMM EVO Frigates for EUR 3.9 Billion Under SAFE — Naval Group's FDI Passed Over
Rome, 20 July 2026
Key points
- Portugal and Italy signed a government-to-government agreement for three new-generation frigates on 20 July in Rome — concluded at national-armaments-director level by Rear Admiral António Mateus and Admiral Giacinto Ottaviani, in the presence of defence ministers Nuno Melo and Guido Crosetto during Prime Minister Luís Montenegro's visit
- The programme is financed under the EU's SAFE borrowing instrument against Portugal's EUR 5.8 billion allocation; Montenegro announced a value of EUR 3.9 billion covering ships, maintenance, technology transfer and operational conditions for no less than 30 years, with deliveries between 2029 and 2030
- The ships are FREMM EVO multi-mission frigates from Orizzonte Sistemi Navali — Fincantieri (51 per cent) and Leonardo (49 per cent) — the joint venture already building two EVO hulls ordered by the Italian Navy in 2024
- Naval Group's FDI, in contention since late 2025 with an Arsenal do Alfeite industrial offer, was passed over; the domestic return Lisbon names — floating dock, combat-systems work, simulators — remains unquantified
Portugal has confirmed the purchase of three Italian FREMM EVO multi-mission frigates under a government-to-government agreement signed in Rome on 20 July — the first major SAFE-financed naval procurement to cross a border, drawn against Lisbon's EUR 5.8 billion allocation, with deliveries promised for 2029 to 2030.
The Portuguese government's own communiqué carries the structure: an agreement signed at the Palácio do Exército at armaments-director level and witnessed by both defence ministers, financed within SAFE, spanning acquisition, sustainment, technology transfer and the conditions for operating the ships for no less than three decades. The EUR 3.9 billion figure is Montenegro's, announced in Rome rather than written into the communiqué. The frigates come from Orizzonte Sistemi Navali, contracting through OCCAR — the same chain building two FREMM EVO for the Italian Navy, the first of which is already in production at Fincantieri.
France's FDI — the compact frigate Naval Group had pitched with local-build promises around the Arsenal do Alfeite, and whose export case the French Navy's own leadership argued as recently as May — was passed over. No structured tender is documented: the choice ran through the Portuguese Navy's internal evaluation to a direct state-to-state agreement, the pattern Italy has now run twice in a month after Berlin's MEKO substitution for the F126.
SAFE is writing naval outcomes across borders. Lisbon borrows through Brussels and spends in Italian yards — the instrument built to Europeanise procurement is, in its first naval application, concentrating it on the continent's running production lines. The 2029–2030 delivery promise is only reachable on a line already hot; whose slots those are — the Italian Navy's own hulls or new capacity — is the first thing the industrial contract will show. As Großwald Signal No. 107 noted, the next round of the same contest is already open: Belgium's alternatives list for its late ASWF programme includes both the FREMM EVO and the FDI, with a decision wanted by October.