MoD sticks by its plans for Typhoon
Monday December 16, 2002
The Guardian
The government yesterday insisted it remained committed to the pan-European combat aircraft Eurofighter Typhoon, downplaying a report that Britain wants to scale back orders for the jets.
"There's no change in the government's commitment to Typhoon; it remains an important programme not only for the RAF but also for the UK's defence industry," said a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence.
The Sunday Telegraph claimed that the government wanted a dramatic cut in the number of the jets its receives, in a move that could further sour relations with BAE Systems, the country's largest defence group. The newspaper said the government had opened talks with its counterparts in Italy, Spain and Germany, but said it seemed Britain was alone in wanting the changes.
The MoD said it had a contractual commitment to buy 55 Eurofighters in the first batch of deliveries and had a memorandum of understanding with its partners to buy another 89 planes in the second tranche and 88 in a third batch. The spokesman said the contract for tranche two was due to be signed next year, with tranche three in 2007.
The Sunday Telegraph said the RAF was lobbying for the second batch of aircraft to be radically changed to include ground attack capability, and wanted the third tranche scaled back or cancelled.
The Typhoon is being built by Eurofighter, a consortium of European Aeronautic Defence & Space, BAE and Finmeccanica. The partner nations in the project are Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Relations between BAE and the government soured last week after BAE warned that changes to submarine and maritime patrol aircraft contracts were under discussion after the MoD refused to pick up the bill for delays.
BAE said there were "substantial schedule and cost implications" for the Astute submarine and Nimrod aircraft contracts.
Reuters