Signal No. 159 · Damen claims EUR 4.68 billion over the F126
Damen, removed from the F126 frigate programme in June, claims EUR 4.68 billion under the contract, most of it, its lawyer says, owed to subcontractors.
DEZDINSEA F126: Damen's lawyer claims EUR 4.68 billion from Germany under the frigate contract the defence ministry ended in June
t-online 1 Oct · dpa 2 Oct · dpa via Tagesspiegel 2 Oct · Signal No. 89 · Signal No. 122
Damen Schelde Naval Shipbuilding, the Dutch yard that held the F126 frigate contract until Germany's defence ministry ended the programme on 24 June, is claiming EUR 4,679,663,394 net from the Federal Republic. Peter Gauweiler, its lawyer and a former CSU politician, set out the figure in letters to members of the Bundestag's budget and defence committees and to Boris Pistorius, the defence minister; Bild and the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported it on Thursday, and dpa, which has seen the letters, on Friday. Gauweiler calls them contractual payment and indemnity claims, "not extra-contractual damages claims" (translated), and writes that most of the sum passes on to the yard's "many hundreds of subcontractors". Possible further damages claims "are currently being examined". In August Oliver Burkhard, TKMS's chief executive, said TKMS had invited those suppliers, "all of them who are, let's say, victims of F126, as long as they deliver in time", onto the second MEKO A-200 DEU lot, the four further frigates Berlin can order until the end of 2026.
Damen's case is that the termination had no legal basis. It turns on June 2024, when the ministry exercised the option for ships five and six and raised the contract value from EUR 4.5 billion to EUR 6.5 billion; at that point, Gauweiler writes, it already knew "that the original schedule could not be held, to which it had itself contributed" (translated). In a separate letter to the minister's office on 22 September he alleged a breach of official duty by the ministry's political leadership.
The ministry ended the programme on delays, cost growth and risk: six ships would have cost more than EUR 18 billion against about EUR 10 billion at the outset, and the first would not have reached the fleet before 2032. In July Pistorius called Damen's statements a "prophylactic counter-attack", gave the basis for the termination as "the contractor's poor performance", and said Damen knew Germany could have damages claims of EUR 2.3 billion (translated).
Signal › In June the ministry gave one reason for not handing the programme to Rheinmetall's NVL yards: a change of contractor would have meant waiving the state's damages claims against Damen. The form of Thursday's claim says which termination Damen thinks it received. Under the default rules of German works-contract law, a buyer who terminates for cause owes payment only for work performed; one who terminates without cause owes the agreed price less what the contractor saved, and must hold it harmless for the commitments it made to its suppliers. "Payment and indemnity claims" is the vocabulary of the second case; "poor performance" is the vocabulary of the first. The June 2024 option is Damen's evidence that the ministry accepted the schedule it later called poor performance. Whether the contract follows the statutory default is not public.
RUCDPL Brussels and Kyiv say the means to cover Ukraine's 2026 needs are identified; Ukraine's finance minister puts the 2027 shortfall at USD 78 billion
European Commission 1 Oct · Euronews 1 Oct · European Commission (Ukraine Support Loan) · European Commission 25 Jun · Kyiv Post 1 Oct · Signal No. 144 · Signal No. 155 · Signal No. 157
The European Commission and Ukraine said in a joint statement on Thursday afternoon: "Today through coordinated joint efforts, we have identified the means to cover Ukraine's budget and defence needs for 2026. We have also reconfirmed the steps needed to ensure their timely release." For 2027 they agreed to "move forward swiftly with the allocation of €45 billion under the Ukraine Support Loan, subject to the established conditions", to begin identifying additional needs and to meet monthly. The statement names no amount and no instrument for 2026. On Tuesday Zelenskyy had given his government until 15 October to secure this year's money.
Commission officials had been reluctant to validate the USD 27 billion defence gap Zelenskyy first put to allies in late August, a figure Euronews says came down to USD 20 billion in technical talks and which Zelenskyy repeated unchanged on Tuesday; they pointed to about USD 37 billion still available from the loan and the Ukraine Facility to the end of the year. Serhii Marchenko, the finance minister, puts 2027's uncovered need at USD 78 billion: USD 32.6 billion of budget support, the residual after about USD 20 billion of a USD 52.6 billion need is committed, and USD 45 billion of military spending for which, he says, allies have given no guarantees. The Commission has not validated those figures.
Signal › The loan is EUR 45 billion a year, and the 2026 half was fixed in June at EUR 16.7 billion for the budget and EUR 28.3 billion for defence. On Monday EU defence ministers asked to bring part of the 2027 half forward; Thursday's statement names no instrument for 2026 and then promises to allocate 2027's EUR 45 billion "swiftly". The two are consistent with this year's gap being closed from next year's money. The test is the 2027 budget-support figure when it is published: the regulation's indicative EUR 30 billion leaves EUR 13.3 billion, and anything lower measures what 2026 took.
Procurement · Industry · Capability
UXSDEZ Bundeswehr loitering munitions: HX-2 and Virtus qualification down to "remaining work", first training in November; one supplier given more time on a milestone
The defence ministry says Helsing's HX-2 and STARK's Virtus have reached "a comparable state of qualification" with "only remaining work to be carried out"; their munition-safety qualification "is or will shortly be complete" (translated). First training is planned for November and the ability to use them tactically for this year. A ministry spokeswoman said all termination milestones in the contracts remain valid and have been or will shortly be met; one company, not named, was given extra time on a milestone because the delay was not of its making. Virtus completed its live-warhead strike trials in early September; trade reporting says the HX-2's are still pending. Under the budget committee's February resolution, each further call-off from the framework of up to EUR 4.4 billion needs the committee's approval again, with each maker capped at EUR 1 billion.
SEAIAMD Germany signs with Diehl to adapt IRIS-T SLM for the F125 frigates, nine days after the budget committee's approval; value undisclosed
The Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support (BAAINBw) has signed a contract with Diehl Defence for adaptation development of the IRIS-T SLM ground-based air-defence system for the navy's four F125 frigates, Diehl said on Friday; Diehl builds prototypes and conducts "comprehensive test firings". The budget committee approved the adaptation on 23 September, reported then at two launchers per ship with 16 rounds each, a prototype in 2027 and about EUR 40 million by observers' estimate. The class has no medium-range air-defence missile in service. Diehl published neither value nor schedule.
DIN UK: 51 per cent of new defence contracts single-source in 2025/26, the highest share since 2015/16; the major-projects section moved out of the annual statistics
The Ministry of Defence's annual trade, industry and contracts statistics, published on Thursday, put payments to industry in 2025/26 at GBP 43.4 billion, up 3.2 per cent after inflation, plus GBP 0.7 billion through US Foreign Military Sales. New contracts fell by GBP 5.1 billion to a provisional GBP 16.4 billion, and 51 per cent of them were placed without competition, up from 49 per cent, "the highest level of single sourcing since 2015/16"; the top ten suppliers took 40 per cent of spending. Major Equipment Projects data "has not been produced since 2024" and the section has been removed; the ministry points to broadly similar information in the annual report of the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA).
DPLSTK France's 2027 budget documents: EUR 1.5 billion planned for a ground-launched ballistic missile, under EUR 80 million committed next year; the Leclerc's successor stays in studies
The armed forces ministry's budget document for 2027, the bleu budgétaire, puts EUR 1.5 billion of commitment authorisations against a ground-launched ballistic missile, after EUR 1 billion in this year's budget; a little under EUR 80 million would actually be engaged in 2027, for preparatory work. No range is given in the reported figures. In April the update of the military programming law launched studies for a conventional ballistic missile of up to 2,500 kilometres. The intermediate tank, now conceived to follow the Leclerc, stays within upstream studies, with a EUR 167 million land-innovation envelope going mainly to its technologies. Army deliveries next year include 110 Griffon, 70 Serval, 20 Jaguar, 16 CAESAR NG and 21 renovated Leclerc.
SPCPLB Poland: three more MikroGlob reconnaissance satellites in orbit, completing four optical satellites ordered from Creotech for about PLN 557 million
MikroGlob-2, -3 and -4 reached orbit on SpaceX's Transporter-18 mission on Thursday and joined the first, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, the deputy prime minister and defence minister, said on Friday, adding that the ground station had contact with all three. The Armament Agency signed for the four optical Earth-observation satellites with Creotech Instruments in December 2024, for about PLN 556.7 million gross; the system is to be ready in 2027. They join the ICEYE-built MikroSAR radar satellites of the POLSARIS constellation, launched in March.
GRZCEE Romania: an object, possibly a drone, falls and burns at Plauru in Tulcea county; the ministry's radars reported no unauthorised entry into national airspace
Romania's defence ministry said on Friday that its radar had tracked drone attacks overnight on Ukrainian targets across the river border in northern Tulcea, and that at about 05:00 an object, "possibly an aerial drone", fell near Plauru and started a fire, with no casualties or damage; the area was secured for a specialist search. "The radar systems of the Ministry of National Defence did not report any unauthorised penetration of national airspace during the past night" (translated). The ministry used the same sentence on Tuesday after a drone with an explosive payload detonated near Gropeni in Brăila county; neither release gives a type.
ARCINT JEF ministers meet in Iceland with Canada's membership application on the agenda; no outcome published
Defence ministers of the ten-nation, all-European Joint Expeditionary Force met in Iceland on Thursday and Friday, with Canadian and Ukrainian ministers attending, to "progress discussions on Canada's application for membership of the JEF Framework", the Ministry of Defence said; Antti Häkkänen, Finland's defence minister, withdrew for a parliamentary confidence vote. No outcome was published.
Forward Look
Saturday 3 October: Latvia's parliamentary election. Monday 5 October: the end of the ten days Zelenskyy set for the US-proposed three-way technical talks in the Emirates. Tuesday 6 October, Vilnius: the first of two 94-vote readings on Article 137. Friday 9 October: the Council is due to adopt the IRINI extension.
Further out: Monday 12 October: the Council is due to adopt 1,600 military-industrial listings. 15–16 October: the European Council takes the readiness report. October: the decision Theo Francken, Belgium's defence minister, set in July on staying in the Damen-built ASWF frigate programme. October, Poland: Colby's Bergen Group meeting, date not published. Thursday 29 October: the Duma's first reading of Russia's budget. Late October: the two US battalions reach Lithuania. November: first Bundeswehr training with HX-2 and Virtus. Friday 6 November: the posture review's option sets reach Hegseth. Thursday 12 November: the Bundestag budget committee's final session on the 2027 budget. End of 2026: the option on four further MEKO A-200 DEU.
Watch: a court filing in the F126 dispute, or the ministry's figure for its own claims; the Commission's split of the 2027 EUR 45 billion; the HX-2's live-warhead trials and the next call-off submission; a range for the French ballistic-missile line; a type for the Plauru and Gropeni drones; a JEF decision on Canada. The Västerbotten resumed its course on Thursday afternoon and was in Sillamäe on Friday morning; Estonia has had no explanation from Russia.
