Austrian MoD wants to drop Eurofighter

From DefenseNews

Posted 01/15/07 11:24

Austria’s New Defense Minister Wants To Drop Eurofighter Contract

By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, VIENNA

Austria’s new defense minister, Norbert Darabos, in an interview appearing here Friday, said he remained determined to drop a contract signed by the former government to purchase 18 Eurofighter jets.

“The objective is still to pull out of the Eurofighter contract. The costs are simply too high,” the Social Democrat minister told the daily newspaper Oesterreich.

But he added: “I cannot say yet whether a pull-out is financially feasible.”

Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer, also a Social Democrat, made a campaign pledge to scrap the Eurofighter contract, worth some 2.0 billion euros (2.58 billion dollars), before his election Oct. 1.

But no such plan appears in the 177-page government contract agreed upon with the conservatives to form a new ruling coalition.

The government of former conservative Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel signed the deal in 2003.

In two-month-long coalition talks, the Social Democrats and conservatives only agreed to emphasize the importance of Austria’s air defense and to find ways to guarantee it.

A parliamentary commission, launched in late October by the Social Democrats, the environmental Green party and part of the far-right to examine the contract awarded European aerospace group EADS is expected to publish its conclusions in March.

In early November, former Defense Minister Guenther Platter estimated that pulling out of the Eurofighter contract would cost Austria at least 1.2 billion euros, based on a preliminary EADS figure.

Austria’s outgoing government paid the first two installments, worth some 218 million euros, for the Eurofighters this week, according to press reports, which the the finance ministry refused to confirm.

The first four aircraft are being completed at EADS’s assembly line in Manching, Germany, and their delivery is set for early 2007.

Darabos said he planned to begin formal talks with the group soon. He added that there had been informal preliminary discussions but “no convergence so far.”

“I assume that fair negotiations are possible. I want to achieve the best for the taxpayers. 500 million euros in savings and therefore more money for social benefits would be nice,” the defense minister said.

Darabos wants fewer Eurofighters but has not excluded purchasing or even leasing other aircraft, or indeed renewing Austria’s contract to lease F-16 jets from Switzerland to control its airspace.