Image: Simon Brooke-Webb / EPA

Construction on US-based Royal Caribbean's next massive luxury liner will begin in Saint Nazaire next autumn. The deal includes an option to build a second vessel in France.

STX Finland had requested—but was turned down for—a government loan of 50 million euros to help secure the cruise liner project. Instead the state agreed to grant 28.3 million euros in innovation support to the STX shipyard in Turku to help attract the order.

Royal Caribbean has not revealed how much the contract was worth. However its Oasis of The Seas and Allure of The Seas, built in Turku and delivered in 2009 and 2010, cost 900 million euros each.

Criticism and disappointment

Finns Party chair Timo Soini said on Friday that his party will table an interpellation to challenge the government on its decision to not grant STX Finland the loan it had sought to win the cruise liner order.

Martin Saarikangas, who founded the company that later became STX Finland, also strongly criticised the cabinet.

"Minister of Economic Affairs Jan Vapaavuori may well go down in history as the man who killed Finland’s shipbuilding industry," he told Yle.

Estimates suggest that the Royal Caribbean order would have brought the Turku shipyard 20,000 man-years of work.

Vapaavuori responds

In a press release, Vapaavuori said he was disappointed that the ship order went to France instead of Finland.

The Minister added that the State had supported the order by all possible means.