Tender for H225M Caracal multirole helicopters (cancelled 2016)

A tender for multirole helicopters for the Polish Armed Forces, intended to replace Mi-8/Mi-17 and Mi-2 aircraft among others, was announced in March 2012. In early 2015 the Ministry of National Defence reduced the number of helicopters sought to 50 (including multirole versions for the land forces, ASW, CSAR and Medevac variants), and on 21 April 2015, in the tender for medium multirole helicopters, the Ministry of National Defence qualified a single offer for the final stage: the Airbus Helicopters H225M Caracal (the two other offers, PZL Świdnik with the AW149 and PZL Mielec with the S-70i Black Hawk, were rejected on formal grounds). Signing an offset agreement was a precondition for concluding the contract; offset negotiations, conducted by the Ministry of Development, began in September 2015. The contract was to be worth about PLN 11.8 billion net, and more than PLN 13.4 billion with taxes (some sources give about PLN 13.5 billion), with the offset expected to be of comparable value. Following a change of government, in early October 2016 the Ministry of Development judged the offset offer unsatisfactory and on 4 October 2016 announced the end of negotiations. A contract for the purchase of 50 helicopters was never signed, and no unit was ever delivered; Poland subsequently disputed with Airbus Helicopters over the settlement of the broken-off negotiations. Under the project's rule for defence programmes dominated by weapons purchases abroad, the record serves a strategic-visibility function (cost = null, no isolable Polish investment outlay; no contract was concluded) and does not contribute to the aggregated investment value.