VIENNA — Germany’s Defense Ministry has canceled its troubled F126 frigate program, scrapping plans to build six specialized anti-submarine warships and opting instead to procure eight MEKO A-200 frigates from ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, the ministry announced Wednesday.
The decision follows years of delays and cost overruns under Dutch shipbuilder Damen Schelde Naval Shipbuilding, which was awarded the original contract in 2020 to build six of the 10,550-ton frigates for roughly €10 billion ($11.3 billion). The ministry said Damen had given notice that the ships could not be delivered within the agreed timeline or budget.
The military had been exploring a transfer of the general contractor role to Naval Vessels Lürssen since 2025, the newly Rheinmetall-owned shipbuilding group. But negotiations put the price tag for a Lürssen-led continuation of the F126 program at around €15.2 billion for six ships. When accounting for work already completed under the Damen contract and associated support agreements, the total financial requirement would have exceeded €18 billion.
The ministry said a contractor switch would also have required Berlin to waive potential damage claims against Damen — a condition it was unwilling to accept. The legal review of those claims is ongoing.
The pivot to MEKO frigates had been in the works since at least March, when Defense News reported that Germany was pursuing a “bridge solution” of four MEKO A-200 DEU ships from TKMS to ensure anti-submarine capability ahead of NATO commitment deadlines. At the time, officials said the F126 program was not altogether sunk, and negotiations with Lürssen as a replacement lead contractor were continuing, with Damen expressing interest in remaining “an essential partner.”
Wednesday’s announcement closes that chapter. The German Navy’s top officer has formally blessed the MEKO A-200 DEU as capable of fulfilling Germany’s core submarine-hunting mission and meeting NATO obligations, the ministry said.
Subject to approval by the Bundestag’s budget committee, the first four MEKO frigates would cost approximately €6.3 billion ($7.15 billion), with an option for four additional ships exercisable through end-2026 for roughly €5.3 billion ($6 billion) — a combined total of €11.6 billion ($13.2 billion) for all eight hulls. The ministry attributed the price increase relative to earlier budget estimates primarily to the conversion of an industry cost estimate into a binding TKMS contract offer, with Navy-requested additions accounting for only about 5% of total costs.
The ministry said it intends to submit the requisite approval paperwork to the Budget Committee of the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, as quickly as possible to stay on target for the NATO capability deadline.
Linus Höller is Defense News’ Europe correspondent and OSINT investigator. He reports on the arms deals, sanctions, and geopolitics shaping Europe and the world. He holds master’s degrees in WMD nonproliferation, terrorism studies, and international relations, and works in four languages: English, German, Russian, and Spanish.
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