PARIS — France’s Naval Group has criticized Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems for hurting European submarine vendors by transferring technology to countries that later managed to build their own boats for export.
TKMS “are champions at creating new competitors,” Guillaume Rochard, Naval Group’s head of strategy, partnerships and mergers, said at a round table in Paris to discuss France’s defense-industrial base earlier this month. “They’ve made extremely significant technology transfers to Turkey and Korea, two nations that are now in the submarine export market.”
Naval Group and TKMS regularly face off on submarine contracts, and Rochard described the German firm as his company’s main competitor in conventional submarines. The executive said Naval Group is “very careful” regarding transfer of technology in order to not create or intensify competition, an approach he contrasted with that of TKMS.
TKMS denied careless sharing of submarine tech, in an emailed response to Defense News, saying the company “sets the benchmark for responsible technology transfer” in the naval industry.
The Germany company said in addition to securing its intellectual property, all sales are set up for customers to “commission and operate our products for any naval mission they need to perform and execute to defend their country.”
The company said it couldn’t comment on specific projects due to their classified nature.
The company’s naval industry mission “is well defined in the respective export control regulation on which each and every form of technology transfer is based upon,” the company said. “We at thyssenKrupp Marine Systems are always acting in full compliance with that.”
ThyssenKrupp won an order from Turkey in 2009 for six submarines with an air-independent propulsion system based on the company’s HDW fuel cell technology, to be built by Gölçük Naval Shipyards near Izmit. The first boat in the resulting Reis-class submarines entered service in August 2024. Turkey last month announced the start of construction of its first locally developed submarine, putting the country on track to become self-sufficient in the technology.
France’s armaments directorate DGA will intervene on export deals to keep critical skills in the country, said Alexandre Lahousse, head of the defense industry directorate within DGA, during the round table talk in Paris. The official said export clients are demanding increasingly large offsets and greater degrees of program sharing in exchange for contracts.
“How do we ensure that what was a few percent before and now becomes large chunks, does not go against our defense industrial policy?” Lahousse said. “That’s a matter of dialogue with industry, but we also have flexible and lively discussions with international directorate colleagues to find a balance, which is that all critical skills, we will try to keep, those will be more like red lines.”
Lahousse added: “So we are going to restrict your freedoms a little more in this area, but it’s for a good cause, it’s so that we can maintain our strategic autonomy.”
ThyssenKrupp provided the design and major components for the Class 214 submarines for South Korea, built by Hyundai Heavy Industries and Hanwha Ocean, with the first two boats commissioned in 2008.
Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.
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