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DEFENCE

Navantia to build five frigates for €4.3 bln and create 7,000 jobs

Spain's state-owned shipbuilder Navantia will build five frigates for the country's navy in a 4.3-billion-euro agreement that will create around 7,000 jobs, the ministry for regional affairs said Thursday.

Navantia to build five frigates for €4.3 bln and create 7,000 jobs
General view of the Navantia shipyard in Fene, northwestern Spain.

In a statement, it said the cabinet would on Friday give its green light for construction of the F-110 frigates in the industrial city of Ferrol in the northwestern region of Galicia dubbed Spain's Detroit for its slow decline over the years.   

The agreement “entails an investment of €4.325 billion ($4.9 billion) and the creation of 7,000 jobs,” the ministry quoted Javier Losada, the central government's representative in Galicia, as saying.

It said that included at least 1,300 direct jobs, 2,000 in peripheral industries and 3,500 indirect ones.”There will be direct and indirect added value of €5.4 billion,” Losada was quoted as saying.   

The ships will be built in Ferrol, which has long suffered from a shrinking population and abandoned buildings as its once buoyant shipyards decline.   

As such, Losada said the deal was a major coup for the area in terms of jobs and economy.

Strategic industry for jobs

The ships will substitute six other “Santa Maria” frigates that are now 35-years-old in the navy.

The defence ministry also hopes to export these brand new frigate models abroad.

“To succeed in exports, the competitiveness of Navantia's products is crucial and the defence/navy-Navantia collaboration model is one of the pillars on which this competitiveness can be built,” the defence ministry said on its website.   

“The programme of F-110 frigates is key to modernising the navy's fleet and to ensure the future of Navantia in exporting these types of products.”   

The defence industry in Spain, which is recovering from a severe economic crisis and has one of Europe's highest unemployment rates, is important in terms of the jobs and money it generates.

Navantia has also signed an 1.8-billion-euro deal to supply oil-rich Saudi Arabia with five navy ships.

But this agreement reportedly came into trouble in September after the Socialist government said it had cancelled a 2015 deal to sell 400 laser-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia amid concerns they could harm civilians in Yemen where the kingdom is engaged in a conflict.

That sent shudders in Spain as the war ship deal involves 6,000 jobs.   

The government soon backtracked on its decision to not sell the bombs to Saudi Arabia, and the ship deal appears to be on track.   

In October, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez defended this despite an outcry over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

“If you ask me where I stand today, it is in the defence of the interests of Spain, of jobs in strategic sectors in areas badly affected by the drama that is unemployment,” he told parliament.

READ MORE: Spanish PM defends selling arms to Saudi despite journalist's death

DEFENCE

France recruits 1,800 extra staff to cyber warfare unit

The French defence ministry on Wednesday announced plans to significantly boost the country's four-year-old cyber warfare force, citing the "growing number and gravity" of hacking attacks on the country.

France recruits 1,800 extra staff to cyber warfare unit
French defence minister Florence Parly. Photo: Alain Jocard/AFP

The government had already planned to add an additional 1,100 recruits to a unit created in response to the growing number of cyber attacks on the West, mostly blamed on Russia and China.

Defence Minister Florence Parly told a cyber security conference in the city of Lille on Wednesday she had decided to go further to try make France “a cyber security champion”.

Warning of a “Cold War in cyberspace” she said she would hire an extra 770 cyber combattants on top of an additional 1,100 already planned, bringing the force’s staffing level to 5,000 by 2025.

France and other Western countries are alarmed over a growing number of increasingly aggressive cyber attacks, including data breaches and ransomware attacks, which typically see hackers encrypting victims’ data and then demanding money for restored access.

Recent high-profile targets have included a US oil pipeline, Ireland’s health service and India’s flag carrier Air India.

Parly said that the French army needed to increase it use of the “cyber weapon”.

“Our opponents do not shy away from doing so, whether state powers, terrorist groups or their backers,” she said.

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