While delivering the last sale argument last spring for Canada to buy its submarines, Oliver Burkhard, the CEO of Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS), the CEO of Germany, used the phrase “strategic association” half a dozen times.
Canada would be part of “a family,” he said.
Perhaps, soon, we will soon have a better feeling of whether that approach is the music for the ears of Prime Minister Mark Carney and the key members of his cabinet, which is expected to spend a large part of Tuesday meeting with politicians and high business leaders in Berlin before touring the main shipyard of the country.
The prime minister will meet with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and is scheduled to participate in a round business table with the aim of diversifying the Canada’s trade and creating a critical mineral association.
However, as with many elements of its European trip this week, defense and security problems are close to the top of the Carney agenda.
In the high -risk billionaire gambit, to replace the aging of Canada, and largely inoperable, Victoria class submarines, the contestants designed by Germans and Norwegians are perhaps the best known and well -known contestants of the contestants.
The past spring on the margins of the Ottawa Arms Expo Cansec, Burkhard, the senior German defense official Jasper Wieck and the Norwegian captain (N) Oystein Storebo sat up with the news of CBC to discuss the TKMS information field, which had been presented last year at the request of the Canadian government.
The shipyards in South Korea, Sweden and Spain also responded to requests for information.
Germany and Norway, however, have been involved for several years in their own joint underwater construction program.
Canada is looking to buy 12 submarines with conventional motor.
Type 212CD is based on German design 212a well established, which is operated by the German and Italian armed.
Storebo, director of Submarine Programs of Norway, said that 212CD (CD refers to common design) was designed for operations in all oceans, especially the Arctic.
It was a necessity because Norway is an Arctic country. With its independent air propulsion system, the diesel electric boat can remain submerged for more than three weeks, Storebo added.
It is a large boat: 73 meters in length, 2,800 tons when submerged and with eight torpedo tubes.
The initial order of $ 8.1 billion (5.5 billion euros) was for six 212cds, two for Germany and four for Norway. Each country now plans to build more, raising the total order of up to 12 ships.
The German Navy will receive its first 212CD in 2028, while Norway is expected to be in the water the following year.
The launch of TKMS also implies a plan to build a underwater maintenance installation in Canada, creating jobs for Canadians, an important condition that the liberal government has repeatedly underlined.
Burkhard, who praised cost savings for Germany and Norway in terms of supply and maintenance, said if Canada joined the program, it is possible that the first Canadian ship reaches the period 2032-33.
To interrupt in the production line at this point would probably imply redirect one of the submarines already intended for Germany or Norway.
“I think there are opportunities to discuss whether one of them is perhaps the first Canadian,” Burkhard told CBC News.
Although, he said, it depends a lot on the Canadian government and how quickly it moves.
Carney has suggested that the government would like to have a decision on the underwater project by 2027.
