Agence France-Presse,
Berlin: The bill for the Eurofighter combat jets developed by a consortium of four European countries is going to cost over 10 billion euros more than expected, the German magazine Focus has reported.
For the countries involved in developing the Eurofighter, Britain will have to spend an additional 5.8 billion euros (8.2 billion dollars), Italy 2.16 billion, Germany 1.97 billion and Spain 820 million, the weekly reported in its edition to appear Monday.
Focus cited a letter from Eurofighter-GmbH, the German branch of the consortium, addressed to Germany's defence ministry.
“Other clients” for the Eurofighter will also have to pay more, the magazine said.
The cost of developing the military jet has increased due to certain “systems” and other modernisation, Focus said.
Partners in the consortium divided work on the plane in 1998 according to the number of aircraft each country planned to buy, with a total of 620 orders booked in three stages through to 2017.
The Eurofighter is a multi-purpose combat jet which has also been ordered by Saudi Arabia and Austria.
It was developed by a European consortium comprised of the aerospace group EADS, BAE Systems of Britain and the Italian group Alenia/Finmeccanica.
