Denmark Delays Construction of Arctic Patrol Ships
The Royal Danish Navy inspection ship Vædderen during a search and rescue exercise with the US Coast Guard on March 25, 2008. Together with the cutters Tigershark and Spencer and Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod, the crews searched for “Oscar,” a dummy used to train rescue personnel. Source: Wikimedia Commons, US Coast Guard, Public Domain
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According to DR, it has been 573 days since the Danish government presented a plan to build new Arctic patrol ships for Greenland. A contract with a supplier has still not been signed, and according to Greenland’s government leader, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, this is “not satisfactory.”
BACKGROUND
A year and a half ago, the government presented a plan to build five new Arctic ships. Nielsen says in an interview with DR that he is not satisfied that the Danish side has yet to sign with a supplier.
“I think that when you have decided to build inspection ships because the current fleet is already old, you should speed it up. But that is a discussion I will have with the Danish government and not via the press,” he tells DR.
The plan is for the five new ships to replace the current, worn-out inspection ships patrolling Greenland.
Waiting on the Technical Specifications
The Ministry of Defense announced in a press release in February that a state assembly factory will be built in Frederikshavn, which will assemble the five Arctic patrol ships.
The release stated that contract negotiations can only begin once the so-called technical specifications for the ships have been determined.
At the same time, the ministry stated that there must be a military-professional approach to what the ships should be able to do, and that an agreement must be reached on who will build them.
Pressure from Nuuk
Several politicians have previously criticized the fact that no agreement has been made with a supplier.
The fact that shipbuilding has not yet started also arouses dissatisfaction among politicians in the Greenlandic parliament. According to DR, the chairman of Inatsisartut’s Foreign and Security Committee, Pipaluk Lynge, is calling on Denmark to pick up the pace and get shipbuilding started.
The new ships are to eventually replace Denmark’s four Thetis-class inspection ships, which are worn out and almost 40 years old.
The plans to invest in new ships for patrolling off Greenland were presented as part of a new defense agreement on the Arctic in 2025. The agreement is meant to strengthen Denmark’s presence in the Arctic and the North Atlantic, among other things.
Source: Sermitsiaq (in Danish)