Italy, which leads the community of four PESCO participating EPC countries (together with France, Spain and Greece), has sought the Agency's support to move forward with this ambitious initiative, EDA announced in a press release.
The project is part of the third batch of PESCO projects approved in November 2019 and aims to design and build a new class of military vessels, the European Patrol Corvette (EPC), which will host multiple systems and payloads capable of performing a wide range of tasks and missions in a modular and flexible manner.
In the areas of maritime situational awareness, surface dominance and power projection, the EPC can have useful capabilities. The participating Member States are aiming at producing their first prototype corvette in the period 2026-2027.
The EPC is envisaged as a common forum, a shared baseline, which the participating Member States can customize according to their national needs, as necessary.
The total displacement is expected to be no more than 3,000 tons, allowing the vessel to operate from small ports (draft less than 5.5 meters). The length of the ship to be fitted with diesel and/or electric motors should not exceed 110 metres.
Through developing and adopting the Common Staff Target (CST), Common Staff Requirements (CSR) and a Business Case, the Agency's new project will support the implementation of the EPC PESCO project. The goal of these documents, which are an important step for a follow-on process, is to shape the common core component and to define requirements that would be consistent with the principle of modularity.
Maritime Business World