UAE moving toward massive military hardware deal with France
The UAE is heading to conclude a new deal to obtain military hardware from France with a financial value of up to $850 million.
The UAE is trying to lure a French defense company to conclude the aforementioned deal in light of international and legal pressures on the French government to stop selling arms to Abu Dhabi against the background of its war crimes against civilians in Yemen.
Two days ago, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Abu Dhabi Armed Forces received Herve Jolo, Chairman and CEO of the French Naval Group specializing in the field of maritime defense industries.
The official Emirates News Agency, in publishing the news of the meeting, did not mention the possible deal between the authorities and the French group. But she said that “Ibn Zayed and Hervey Gulu discussed – during the meeting – the potential for cooperation and opportunities between the Naval Group and its counterparts from the specialized companies and institutions concerned in the United Arab Emirates in the field of advanced marine defense industries and systems, and the two sides exchanged views on a number of topics of interest Subscriber.”
In July 2019, leaks broke out with the UAE signing a contract with the French group worth $850 million after the UAE completed 17 months of negotiations over the French ship deal.
The UAE did not announce the deal or the French Naval Group, but was revealed by the French “Intelligence Online” bulletin and independently confirmed by the American website, Defense News.
The negotiations began after a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to the United Arab Emirates in November 2017.
And the official Emirates News Agency interviewed Hervey Jolo in February 2019 during the IDEX 2019 Defense Conference in Abu Dhabi, and quoted him as saying that, “Since the announcement of the consultations in 2017, we have been discussing with the UAE authorities taking into account their specific requirements and providing them with the best answer to their operational needs.”
Last June, French media revealed that the French government had sold two frigates to Abu Dhabi for a value of 750 million euros.
Le Parisien newspaper reported that France sold two Quwind frigates to the UAE.
The newspaper pointed out that the sale of the two frigates came against the background of the signing of a secret agreement between the UAE and the French “Naval Group” (a French industrial group specialized in the field of maritime defense) in Abu Dhabi on March 25.
Earlier, French radio revealed, according to a secret document dated September 25, 2018 from the Ministry of Defense Military Intelligence Department, that the French government sold weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and that these weapons were used against the Houthis in Yemen.
The conclusion of the deal came secretly because of the French government’s fear of public anger and the movements of French and European human rights organizations against it in light of the broad demands of Paris to stop selling arms to the UAE and its Saudi ally.
Western circles have previously interpreted Paris’s support for the attack of an Emirati ally in Libya, Khalifa Haftar, on Tripoli since last April because of the arms deals Abu Dhabi buys from France.
Human rights organizations active in France have moved frequently, including filing lawsuits in the French judiciary in order to pressure Paris to stop selling arms to the UAE.
Military spending and the pursuit of more armaments have turned into an obsession that dominates the Emirati system, as it wages wars and foreign interference.
The UAE system plans to spend $ 17 billion in military armament this year, up from $14.4 billion in 2014 when the government last disclosed the size of the spending. The UAE currently spends only a small portion on the local level.
The agency highlighted that the UAE’s plans to boost its military and armament industries would place it under a new microscope for examination and scrutiny.
The US Assistant Secretary of State for Political and Military Affairs said. Clark Copper, Washington wants the United Arab Emirates to put more oversight while developing its military industry.
According to the agency, “the UAE is making its way to develop military equipment equipped with high technology to give it control over sensitive defense capabilities and reduce its dependence on imports.”
State defense companies were grouped under the umbrella of Edge, a $5 billion group that leads the development of advanced weapons for the army.
This comes as the country is going through an economic crisis looming, as a result of the decline in the value of real estate in Dubai, and the decline in the business environment in the country during the past five years.
For years, the UAE has become at the heart of economic problems with the collapse of oil derivative prices and with all the solutions that are being made. However, the deficit in the federal budget and local governments continues, which raises urgent reasons about the causes of this deficit and the exacerbation of public debt on the UAE, and the threat of a setback in the UAE economy that continues to An attempt to recover from the 2008 setback.
