Bloomberg,
Lawmakers from Germany's ruling coalition rejected a call from within their ranks to discuss cutting back an order for the Eurofighter combat plane, Europe's biggest defense project.
Coalition defense experts said they won't open talks on a proposal by lawmaker Hans-Peter Bartels, a Social Democrat, to cancel the purchase of the final batch of 68 planes. Bartels was cited by the Berliner Zeitung newspaper today as saying the aircraft is an anachronism and the 2.5 billion-euro ($3 billion) order should be dropped.
“We can't gag lawmakers but we've no plans to talk about this any time soon,'' said Ulrike Merten, the Social Democrat chairwoman of the all-party parliamentary defense committee, in a telephone interview in Berlin today. Germany, Spain, Italy and the U.K. are due to sign a contract for a final order of the planes in 2008. “That's time enough to talk again about this valid but thorny issue,'' Merten said.
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