Agence France-Presse, The first of 15 Eurofighter jets which Austria has bought landed in the country Thursday, just weeks after the government ended a political crisis by cutting back the number of the warplanes purchased.
The European-made high-tech combat aircraft landed Thursday at 10:45 a.m. (0845 GMT) at the Zeltweg air base in southern Austria, flown in from Germany by a German pilot.
Maj. Gen. Guenter Hoefler, chief of the Austrian armed forces, and Economy Minister Martin Bartenstein headed the welcoming party.
Social Democrat Defence Minister Norbert Darabos had signed a deal in June with the European aerospace group EADS to purchase only 15 jets, down from the initial 18 ordered four years earlier, cutting the 2 billion euro ($2.7 billion) contract by 400 million euros.
The Socialists had come to power last year pledging to scrap the contract, saying small, neutral Austria did not need the high-tech Eurofighter.
The government survived a no-confidence vote in parliament this month, brought by opposition parties who said the Eurofighter package was still too expensive.
“The defense minister is even running away from the delivery of his Eurofighters now; that’s typical. He is finally getting his jets, and he doesn’t even want to welcome them,” Green party deputy Peter Pilz, who had headed a parliamentary investigation on the purchase, told the daily Oesterreich on Thursday.
Darabos, who was not present at Zeltweg on Thursday, had rejected the criticism Wednesday evening on Austrian television saying: “I don’t think this needs to be a folk festival. We need these jets for air space control, not for partying.”
Three more Eurofighters will be delivered to Zeltweg in August, October and December, and the rest will come in 2008.
