France submarine row: Germany backs EU partner over tanked deal with Australia

Days after Australia cancelled a multi-billion defence deal with France, the latter has decided to raise the submarine row during the next European Union summit. The decision from France came after Australia, the UK and, the US announced a defence partnership called AUKUS, with the initial task being the US and UK backing Australia's bid to acquire nuclear-propelled submarines. This significant development paved the path for the cancellation of a previous agreement signed between Australia and France-based defence companies. 

In the latest development, the French foreign minister met his German counterpart Michael Roth and, discussed the submarine deal during a meeting of the EU at Brussels on Tuesday. During the meeting, Germany's European Affairs Minister came in support of France and said he has "great understanding for the disappointment felt by his French partners." "It’s once more a wake-up call for all of us in the European Union to ask how we can strengthen our sovereignty, how can we stand as one even in question-related to foreign and security policy, and how can we use our economic and political clout in such a way that we can contribute to security and multilateralism," Roth said.

Australia's Submarine deal 'won't meet strategic interests'

Earlier on Monday, France also won support from the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen against the "abrupt" cancellation of the defence deal. He told CNN that "one of our member states has been treated in a way that is not acceptable. ... We want to know what happened and why." Meanwhile, on September 19, Sunday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that the contract was "not in favour of Canberra." Morrison reiterated that the French government and the Submarine company would have known about it before the deal was called off last week.

On the other hand, France President Emmanuel Macron accused Canberra of dropping the French submarine contract in order to favour American nuclear-powered vessels. However, PM Morrison refuted the French President's allegations and claimed that he had raised issues with the French submarine deal several months ago. It is worth noting that France had signed a contract in 2016 for a dozen conventional diesel-electric submarines and the work to make them was already underway. The deal was worth at least $66 billion. 

(With inputs from AP)

(Image: AP)