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CENTURIES after the Spanish Armada was defeated by galleons under the command of Sir Francis Drake and co., Spain will finally get its hands on a piece of Britain’s naval fleet – by building the UK a warship.
The construction of the Royal Navy’s first ship in history will be carried out in Spain due to the problems that plagued the Belfast shipyard, best known for assembling the Titanic.
Navantia told The Financial Times that much of the construction of the first of three ships it is delivering to the Royal Navy as part of a €1.8 billion contract will take place in Spain, rather than Britain.
Earlier this year, Navantia rescued Harland & Wolff, a Belfast-based shipbuilder famed for building vessels for the White Star Line, out of insolvency in a deal worth over €100 million that saved 1,000 jobs.
But plans to base construction in Northern Ireland have hit a brick wall with Donato Martinez, the Spanish company’s chief executive, admitting that ‘the facilities are not ready in Belfast’.
Martinez stated in an interview that “we shuffled things a bit for ship one to Spain and moved things from Spain for ships two, three and four.”
Under current plans, only the bow will be constructed in the UK at the H&W Appledore facility in North Devon, with the remainder of the ship put together in Cadiz.
British warships were traditionally built in UK port cities like Belfast, Portsmouth or Barrow-in-Furness.
But a contract for fleet support ships was awarded in 2022 to Navantia and H&W, beating out a bid by a rival all-UK consortium, sparking union concerns that jobs would be lost to shipyards in Spain – although Spanish bosses insisted construction would take place in Britain.
READ MORE Spain to the Rescue: Navantia buys storied British Shipyard that Built the Titanic to save 1,000 UK Jobs
Francis Tusa is an analyst and editor at the Defence Analysis Newsletter. He said that if Navantia built the majority of the first vessel in Spain, it was not a guarantee the two other ships would also be made abroad.
“The Trojan horse was always ‘we will build ships in Britain’,” he said.
He continued: “If indeed it turns out that the first vessel, which, I think, means the whole class, is constructed in Spain, the [UK Ministry of Defence] The Royal Navy was made fools of and shown to be fools.”
Steve Aiken, a member of Northern Ireland’s Stormont Assmebly for the Ulster Unionist party, described Navantia’s approach as ‘pragmatic’.
“It’s disappointing that Belfast isn’t ready yet…but a properly equipped yard means that Navantia can also bid for Type 26 and 31 subcontract work, as well as being in a prime position for MRSS [Multi-Role Strike Ship]”, he told the paper.
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