German government offers to buy Rostock shipyard to be used as navy arsenal

The German government on Friday offered to buy the insolvent MV Werften's Rostock shipyard for an undisclosed sum to turn it into a navy arsenal, a defence source said, in a move to top up the navy's capacities for repairing and servicing war ships.


Reuters | Berlin | Updated: 24-06-2022 19:27 IST | Created: 24-06-2022 19:27 IST
German government offers to buy Rostock shipyard to be used as navy arsenal
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The German government on Friday offered to buy the insolvent MV Werften's Rostock shipyard for an undisclosed sum to turn it into a navy arsenal, a defence source said, in a move to top up the navy's capacities for repairing and servicing war ships. Germany, in response Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has been scrambling to bring its military back in shape after decades of attrition following the Cold War.

In a major policy shift, Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged in February to sharply increase defence spending, including an initial 100 billion euro ($106 billion) fund to fill gaps in weapons and other military equipment. The German navy aims to use the shipyard in Rostock - a town on the Baltic Sea coast in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania where the naval command is located, too - as a branch of its main arsenal in Wilhelmshaven on the North Sea coast in western Germany.

The navy has also been paying the industry to service its ships, but capacity has been so scarce that warships were out of operation for months while waiting for a slot to be repaired or serviced. MV Werften, which filed for insolvency in January, had a payroll of around 2,000, including about 1,100 workers at Wismar.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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