Galery

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V. Mindova

17 million euro costs to the country the maintenance of the nonfunctioning shipyard Skaramanga since the beginning of November 2009 until present. Unfortunately this amount seems to be a drop in the see of the irreversibly lost almost three billion euro which the Greek government has paid to the German company ThyssenKrupp for the construction of four new submarines type-214 and the reconstruction and renovation of another three old submarines type-209. None of the submarines was finished and submitted strictly and the submarine “Papanikolis” 214 was even produced with a defect. The faulty vessel has been repaired according to information of the Ministry of defense and will be sold to a third country for the price of about 500 million euro. If a buyer is not found the submarine will remain property of the Greek military force only after its fitness has been certified by the German committee for vessel certification.

After the retirement of ThyssenKrupp the shipyard found a new candidate owner, the Arabian Abu Dabi Mar. Evagelos Venizelos, Minister of defense stated during a meeting with journalists that with the new contract for concession the Arabian corporation will acquire 75% of the shares of the shipyard, however the government will keep the right of veto over every decision which the board of directors of the company takes. This provision was not included in the exploitation contract with the old concessionaire ThyssenKrupp which according to the minister was a mistake on the part of the previous government. With the enacting of the provisions under the new contract in the shipyard Skaramanga will be made and repaired excessively only vessels with military purposes. The promise of the Minister of Defense Venizelos is for a strict control over the activity of the executor and sanctions in case of a breach or nonperformance of the liabilities under the contract. Abu Dabi Mar will be able to take over by August this year when the concession contract will be in its final version. The press conference was called especially to provide information on the process and the conditions for privatization of the shipyard Skaramanga, and the Minister stated officially that regardless of the problems there will be no lay offs for the staff.