German and Norwegian Ministers of Defence to visit Canada next week
Hot off the heels of Jens Plötner, German State Secretary for Armaments, Innovation and Cyber’s visit to Ottawa last week, we can now confirm that Boris Pistorius, German Federal Minister of Defence, and Tore O. Sandvik, Norwegian Minister of Defence, will also be visiting Canada next week as part of ongoing efforts to promote the Type 212CD.
CTV got this out before me, but I can confirm that the two will be doing a little tour around, both to meet with government officials and companies regarding several different issues, though mainly about the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project.
Both Norway and Germany have gone into overdrive over the last few weeks in promoting the Type 212CD. With a decision expected soon, the race is on for everyone to prove why they’re the best partner for the project.
For Germany and Norway, that pressure is on. TKMS has yet to confirm a single Canadian partner, and the hands-off approach that the two governments took to the project has been seen by many as having a negative effect on their bid.
Norwegian Ambassador to Canada Hanne Ulrichsen and German Ambassador to Canada Matthias Lüttenberg have also been in the news a lot lately, meeting with media more in the last two weeks than they ever have before.
Both have been hard at work on the front lines of promoting the Type 212CD, even if there appears to be some misalignment with TKMS. The visit next week marks the highest-level officials to come to Canada to promote the 212CD.
That isn’t the only reason they’re here though. Lockheed sources also say that Mr. Pistorius, at the very least, will be meeting company officials to discuss several potential offerings Lockheed has, mainly CMS330 for the Deutsche Marine (I love saying that).
The plan is already in place to equip the future F127 frigates with CMS330. However, there are discussions about expanding that to other vessels in the German Navy, which currently operates several different combat management systems.
The two are also expected to visit other companies, though Lockheed is the only one I can say with confidence. It’s also possible that Lockheed hopes to use this as an opportunity to bolster their own offerings to the Canadian government as part of the F-35 review.
Either way, several announcements are expected to happen over the course of this trip. Maybe the first partners to the project? We’ll try to gather more information over the weekend on what exactly is going on.
Future updates on this topic will be in this week’s newsletter.