Italian Lawmakers Back Cuts to JSF Purchase
ROME — Italy’s planned purchase of 90 Joint Strike Fighters (JSFs) was thrown further into doubt on March 19 as members of the Italian parliament signed off a report calling for “significant” cuts to the program and senior government officials ordered a new defense white paper to reassess Italy’s military strategy by year end. The developments came three days after new Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi suggested Italy would cut its purchase of JSFs as the Italian government struggles to bring down state spending.
The critical report was drawn up by members of the center-left Democratic Party to which Renzi belongs who also sit on the defense commission of the lower house of parliament. The document cannot yet be considered government, or even party policy. “It needs to be voted on by the commission, although I believe it will be since the Democratic Party is in the majority,” said Gian Piero Scanu, a commission member and one of the authors of the report. “Then it will be voted on in parliament itself,” he added.
The document criticizes Italy’s allegedly poor workshare on the JSF program, claims that the jobs generated by Italy’s JSF assembly line are insufficient and states that Italy’s lack of access to sensitive program data will lead to dependence on the US. Italy’s planned 12 billion euro purchase of 90 aircraft should be “significantly cut,” while ongoing orders should be halted until technical hitches are cleared up, the report adds.
While Italy has planned spending billions on the Joint Strike Fighter, it has scaled back its purchases of the Eurofighter. The report argues that instead Italy should be aiming to buy the ground attack version of the Eurofighter, which it claims would compete on level terms with the JSF, adding that the European program guarantees an industrial return equal to outlay.............