Greece Rethinks Eurofighter Deal

By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, ATHENS

 

Originally posted to DefenceNews

 

Greece is reconsidering a project by the former Socialist government to buy 60 Eurofighter jets for its air force, the defense ministry said here on April 9.

 

As both the Greek prime minister and defense minister are due to visit the United States in the coming weeks, the press here is speculating the government may choose the U.S. F-16 instead.

 

“The government has so far made no decision concerning the choice of company from which to buy the fourth generation jets. All options remain open,” defense ministry spokesman Stephanos Guikas told AFP.

 

“A decision on the matter of our arms program for the 2006-2010 period will be taken in the coming months,” he added.

 

The former Socialist government’s decision to buy 60 Eurofighter jets from the European air and space consortium EADS was frozen when the conservative New Democracy party won a general election in March 2004.

 

Greek Defense Minister Spilios Spiliotopoulos is to visit Washington in late April for what Guikas said would be a “political-military meeting for talks on bilateral relations between NATO and Greece.”

 

Greek Prime Minister Costas Caramanlis will visit the United States in late May.

Unless something has happened in the past few months to the Eurofighter program that I dont know about this looks like a mistake to me. I dont believe there is a fighter in service at the moment that is as good as the Eurofighter seems to be.

 

 

Dewayne

Possibly, but Greece is already in the midst of a large commitment to other fighter types, having purchased 50 or 60 (I forget which) F-16 Block 52+, an upgrade of its F-16 Block 30s (by the Falcon UP program), and new precision weaponry for its new and upgraded Mirage 2000s. I am not sure if they could really sustain the purchase of an expensive new fighter with all of these other programs going on.