the horizon project was cancelled. i don't know why. the fremm is the successor (with the anti-air version for the french only). i don't know what the italians have for AA umbrella though, since they only have 2 horizons.

ASTER doesn't work. No sense pouring money down a rathole. The French are quite good at ASW systems. Hence their reorientation. 

The Italians will buy American AAW SAMs and systems and use their own good ASW in their own builds.

Politics.

 

Because ships aren't built for the navy but for a country. All these countries trying to build ships more or less for the same job. How much have all of them spent building industry to do that and then they build a handful of ships. They build 4 ships and spend 10 billion dollars doing it. Cheaper to buy them but hard to say to the shipyard workers in your country that we are buying foreign because it's cheaper and we get more for our money.