Florence Parly, French Armed Forces (Defence) Minister has confirmed via a tweet that on 10 October she signed a letter of intent with her Greek counterpart, Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, for the acquisition of two defence and intervention frigates, also known as Belharra, to equip the Hellenic Navy starting in 2023.
Belharra is the name assigned to the export version of the FDI (Fregate de Taille Intermediaire) medium-size frigates that will be built for the French Navy.
"Meeting this morning with my Greek counterpart, Nikos Panagiotopoulos. Greece engages with us in major defence cooperation," Parly tweeted.
"I signed with my counterpart 🇬🇷 a letter of intent, on the proposed acquisition by Greece of two frigates of defense and intervention (FDI): an agile frigate, fighting, which will equip our navy from 2023," she further added.
France is acquiring five FDIs of its own under the Loi de Programmation Militaire (LPM) 2019–2025 military funding programme.
*Source: Naval News
