Agence France-Presse,
Berlin: Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain will hold talks on Thursday on their orders for the Eurofighter combat aircraft, Berlin said Monday, after a newspaper said tight budgets would slash them in half.
“We will be holding talks this week but there has been no mention of reducing deliveries by half,” a spokesman for the defence ministry said, adding that, “for operational reasons, Germany still needs the 180 Eurofighters.”
The Handelsblatt daily reported on Monday that Germany and its three European partners plan to reduce a third batch delivery of 236 planes, in which Germany is obliged to buy 68, by half, because of the financial crisis.
In 1997, Germany ordered 180 Eurofighter planes, which media is slating to cost the German defence budget some 25 billion euros (31 billion dollars).
Germany's Social Democrat Party, junior partner in the governing coaltion, has been sharply critical of the Eurofighter programme in the past, strongly advocating a cut for both financial and military reasons.
The defence ministry said that they would consider splitting this third batch into “two steps.” The spokesman did not say where Thursday's talks would take place.
