At the end of August - as the defence ministers of Belgium and the Netherlands announced on their social media channels on the fringes of the EU defence ministers' meeting in Toledo - France finally joined their joint rMCM minesweeper programme. The development was not entirely unexpected: the navies of the three countries have been operating mine warfare units as part of the TRIPARTITE programme since the 1980s and had already come much closer together on the issue of a successor programme last year. Paris had originally intended to develop its future SLAM-F mine defence system together with London and in cooperation with Thales and Saab. However, during the Euronaval 2022 trade fair, the navies of Belgium, France and the Netherlands came to a decisive rapprochement - probably also due to Brexit. An order for the French navy, which is now expected to include six mine defence systems, should be placed as early as 2023.
The complex Belgian-Dutch programme has got off to a good start and the delays caused by coronavirus appear to have been made up for. At the end of March 2023, the Belgian OOSTENDE (M 940) was the first unit to be launched at Piriou in Concarneau. The VLISSINGEN (M 840), the first boat destined for the Netherlands, is being prepared for launching at Kership in Lorient. The bow and a 40 metre long hull section of the TOURNAI (M 941) arrived in Concarneau from Gdingen at the beginning of September. The hull of the SCHEVENINGEN (M 841) is being built in Georgu, Romania. In Belgium, the new minesweeper mother ships with a length of 83 metres and a displacement of 2800 tonnes are referred to as the CITY class, in the Netherlands as the VLISSINGEN class. Hardly anything has been heard from France yet!