The Danish Navy's ships are being serviced side by side with ships from the Russian shadow fleet at the Fayard shipyard on Funen, but it must now be investigated whether this practice can continue. This is what the Danish Ministry of Defence's Materiel and Procurement Agency wrote in a response to Ritzau about the family-owned shipyard, which has serviced gas ships in the port of Odense that support the Russian war economy.
- The Danish Ministry of Defence's Materiel and Procurement Agency is aware of the potential problem described and is in the process of clarifying the factual circumstances therein. In continuation of this, FMI will decide whether these circumstances are compatible with the status as a supplier, the agency writes.
The EU has sanctioned 79 ships as being part of the Russian shadow fleet. The US has sanctioned 183 ships. But the number could be much higher.
The Fayard shipyard services ships from the Russian shadow fleet, which are ships that transport Russian natural gas and can avoid sanctions by not sailing under the Russian flag. Fayard is among the 12 Danish shipyards that a year ago entered into a "long-term agreement" with the navy to service the Danish fleet.
- These agreements deal with general shipyard work and inspections on all the navy's ships, the agency writes on Friday.
Mette Frederiksen will look at sanctions
Several media outlets have described the problem. Jyllands-Posten described it in 2022, where Fayard said that work on the gas ships is "a good market for us", for which the shipyard is "really grateful". Fayard does not service ships affected by sanctions and follows the applicable rules, it was said on Tuesday.
- We keep ourselves updated on this, it was said by the Danish company, which is the largest of its kind in the Nordic region.
Earlier this week, the topic became relevant again when the major international newspaper Financial Times wrote about several shipyards in Europe, including Fayard.
The government is working on a joint solution in the EU. The NATO countries around the Baltic Sea - including Denmark - stated in a statement on Tuesday that they will now take tougher action against Russia's shadow fleet. Among other things, by expanding the sanctions and strengthening the monitoring of the ships. In this connection, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen (S) said that it was "clearly" something that the authorities should look into.
- First of all, I simply cannot understand if that is correct. Well, I can't understand if there is a Danish shipyard that is contributing to Russia's war inside Europe, and they simply have to stop that, she said.
She asked for time to look into the matter, which the government has previously been asked to deal with.
However, after the Prime Minister's involvement in the matter, something has happened. In a response to Ekstra Bladet in September 2024, FMI stated that the shipyard had not "violated Danish law and Danish regulations". But now the matter must be investigated.
/ritzau/
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