[7] The shipyard was founded at the beginning of 1795 by Willm Rolf Meyer as a yard specializing in small wooden vessels.

[9] Because the yard at Papenburg is upstream on the river Ems, the giant ships to be delivered have to make a 36 km voyage to the Dollart bay.

[citation needed] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Meyer Werft ran into financial trouble due to a rise in energy and material costs for their shipbuilding contracts.

In 2024, Meyer Werft needed €2.8 billion to complete its existing orders but were unable to obtain financing from banks.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz proclaimed the systemic relevance of Meyer Werft in mid August 2024 and signaled the readiness to help out, pending approval by the Bundestag and the European Commission.

[13] On 13 September 2024, the German parliaments budgetary committee voted for the governments rescue plan.

[14] Research by Handelsblatt showed that the Federal Ministry of Finance had addressed the committee in a secret dossier and stressed the potential importance of the shipyard for military projects if global tensions should rise.

However, Max Johns, Professor for Maritime Management with the HSBA called the claim of Meyer Werft's importance for military projects a "retroactive search for reasons" after politicians had already promised to help, and that ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems and Lürssen were already available.

On the one hand, what is needed is a guarantee worth a good two billion euros, half of which is provided by the federal and state governments.

A report from EY-Parthenon confirms that the Papenburg shipyard location, with its existing infrastructure, has a high level of suitability and capacity to be able to build naval ships in the event of increasing security tensions.