French defence company Naval Group is set to bill the Australian taxpayer after a\u00a0$90 billion submarine contract\u00a0was scrapped when the Federal Government joined the AUKUS defence agreement.<\/p>\n
A claim for compensation would be sent to Canberra in the coming weeks, Naval Group chief executive Pierre \u00c9ric Pommellet told\u00a0Le Figaro\u00a0newspaper.<\/p>\n
The company had signed a deal with the Australian Government in 2016 to build 12 diesel-powered submarines.<\/p>\n
But last week Australia\u00a0joined the AUKUS pact with the US and Britain\u00a0under which it will gain the technology to acquire nuclear-powered submarines.<\/p>\n
Mr Pommellet said that the Morrison Government had told his company to advance with a new phase of the program on the morning last week that the contract was ditched.<\/p>\n
“We were in shock. This decision was announced to us without any notice,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Very few companies have experienced such a (brutal) scenario.”<\/p>\n
Mr Pommellet said Naval Group, which is majority-owned by the French Government, would seek compensation for current and future costs.<\/p>\n
Defence experts estimate the compensation payout could cost the Australian Government about $450 million.<\/p>\n
The termination of the contract by Australia has led to a major diplomatic row with France.<\/p>\n
Last week, Paris announced it was pulling out its ambassadors to Canberra and Washington over the decision.<\/p>\n
And some French politicians have described Australia’s move as a\u00a0“betrayal” and a “stab in the back”.<\/p>\n
This week French President Emmanuel Macron agreed to send his ambassador back to Washington, following a discussion with US President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n
But there are no immediate plans for French Ambassador to Australia Jean-Pierre Thebault to return here in the near future, officials say.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said yesterday that Mr Macron was still not taking his calls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
French defence company Naval Group is set to bill the Australian taxpayer after a\u00a0$90 billion submarine contract\u00a0was scrapped when the Federal Government joined the AUKUS defence agreement. A claim for compensation would be sent to Canberra in the coming weeks, Naval Group chief executive Pierre \u00c9ric Pommellet told\u00a0Le Figaro\u00a0newspaper. The company had signed a deal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3369,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-world"],"views":71,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3406,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404\/revisions\/3406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}